Will you gift your friend or significant other a currency note whose digits match the dates of a birthday or an anniversary? Or buy one yourself?

Currency collector Nikhil Parekh from Mumbai, who claims to have any date in the six digits of a serial number in a banknote among his huge currency collection, is a star attraction at Jamcoin 2018, the 24th annual numismatics and philately exhibition organised by Coin Collectors Club of Jamshedpur, which started on Sunday.

With eight currency and coin dealers, six from Calcutta and one each from Mumbai and Patna, the three-day event was inaugurated by SDO Dhalbhum Prabhat Kumar at Red Cross Bhavan in Sakchi on Sunday.

Also present were president of Coin Collectors Club, Jusco MD Tarun Daga and a host of Jamshedpur schoolchildren displaying their own coin collections.

Parekh, who is here in Jamshedpur after a gap of three years, said his passion was collecting notes to make dates memorable. “Say, your birthday is on February 5, 1985. You’ll write it as 050285. I can give you the tenner with this serial number,” he explained, declining with a smile to say how many tenners he had with him.

But he did say that on the first day of Jamcoin, he sold more than 90 Rs 10 notes, each priced at Rs 100.

Though Parekh only bought a stock of Rs 10 currency notes here, one can pre-book one’s special serial numbers on notes of various denominations to be delivered at your doorstep via courier.

Young homemaker Nimisha Pal, who bought two notes, one each for her parents, smiled that such notes were special. “It’s a unique gift and I know those who get it will understand its sentiment.”

Parekh added this was an ideal gift too. “I am happy my passion make others happy,” he said.

This apart, Jamcoin was a veritable treasure trove of history. Coins on display included the gold fanam, weighing 100mg, issued by the Western Ganga dynasty in Karnataka between 1080 and 1138 AD. The technique used to make it is known as die striking, said its collector Ravi Shankar Sharma from Calcutta, who called it the “smallest coin”. He also displayed Padma Tanka (shaped like a lotus), a coin issued by the Yadavas of Devagiri between 1270-1311 AD and punch-marked coins from Gandhara Janapada in the 6th century BC.

The collector added he had the “lightest coins”, too, Fuka Dam from Nepal. These gold and silver coins weighed just 40mg. Fuka does mean ‘easy to blow’, Sharma smiled. Also on display are uniquely shaped knife money from China, boat ones from Malaysia and dolphin ones from Ukraine.