(Euro) Coins and nationalities

[Immortal Wombat]

I got a Swazilandese coin as a 50p piece once. That was odd.

[Giovanni Wine]

Wow..

I just looked at my coins... I have 8 pieces all of different nationalities.... that's cool

I have 1 German 2€ (The Eagle)
1 Italian 1€ (The Leonardo's man)
1 Dutch 1€ (The face of Beatrix)
1 Spanish 20 cent (The face of a man with beard and mustache)
1 French 20 cent (The woman)
1 Belgian 20 cent (I guess it's Belgian but I'm not 100%, it has the face of a man with a pair of glasses)
1 Greek 10 cent (An old person with big mustache)
1 Irish 5 cent (The "Guiness Symbol" )

Saluti

[Jay Bee]

Originally posted by Giovanni Wine
1 Spanish 20 cent (The face of a man with beard and mustache)
Saluti

That's Cervantes

[Hueij]

16 Dutch
3 Belgian
3 German
3 French

And some loose American, British, Icelandic and Jamaican change...

Bring back the Guilder goddammit!

[Dauphin]

The number of times I get NZ coins in my change is unbelievable. They are similar enough to Aussie coints to trick anyone who simply glances at them, and they even work in vending machines. I'm planning on going to New Zealand, when I do I will go to a bank, order $10,000 worth of 5,10 and 20 cent coins, ship them bag in my luggage and take them to an Australian bank and claim them to be Australian coins. A sweet little exchange rate of 1 for 1.

I also noticed the other day that Fiji coins are also identical. I need to check out that exchange rate first I think.

[Bereta_Eder]

Velestinlis (the guy with the mustache)

[Harovan]

18 coins, 18 German

[laurentius]

Found 6 euro coins in my pocket.
3 finnish, one german, one spanish and one italian.

Which country do you think has coolest coins?
I prefer Italian, Finnish, Greek, and San marinese- they even have the statue of liberty in their coins

[Flandrien]

Originally posted by Snotty
Does anyone know about the dynamics of euro circulation? I guess that holiday destinations would have a much greater mix of different countrys coins, as holiday makers would bring their coins from their home country. Except for holidays, what other reasons can coins have for crossing the border?

It is more dependent on vicinity, and on the size of the country (the total number of coins of that country that is circulating).
I also noticed that the big coins (1 or 2 euro) go further than the small coins (1, 2 or 5 cent).

[Locutus]

As for the dynamics of the Euro, yeah, a lot of it comes from tourism, but don't forget international business and other official traffic either (and international 'Poly Meets ).

But mores structually, in the Dutch-German border area, there's a lot of cross-border traffic. When I go shopping, I go shopping wherever I can get my stuff the easiest and/or cheapest. Sometimes that's in Germany, sometimes that's in the Netherlands. The same goes for everyone living in the Dutch-German border area, on both sides of the border. So this way a lot of German money makes its way into the Netherlands and vice versa.

Since I sometimes also go shopping in Deventer or Amsterdam or other Dutch cities well away from the German border, my German Euro coins end up spreading to the rest of the country as well, and from there into Belgium. Similarly Dutch Euro coins will end up spreading through Germany and from there into other German Eurozone neighbours (though of course Germany is much bigger than the Netherlands, so the spread will be much slower and less noticeable). I reckon it works this way for most/all internal borders within the Eurozone...

I got a Swazilandese coin as a 50p piece once. That was odd.

Don't know what you did, but I would've accepted it and kept it for my collection. That's worth 50p to me

Which country do you think has coolest coins?

Definitely Italy, though Spanish and German coins I also rather like. Don't think I've ever seen coins from San Marino (or the Vatican or Monaco for that matter), not even pictures of them. If anyone has a link, I would like to know what they look like. Belgium coins are defintely the ugliest, though the Dutch ones don't rank particularly high either (and that while we used to have the coolest bank notes in the world ).

[Stefu]

There's a lot of them and they're all Finnish, except for one which seems to be Greek.

[laurentius]

Here you go locutus http://www.eurocoins.co.uk/sanmarino.html

[alva]

4 dull Belgian
3 dutch
1 French
1 Irish

I 've to come accros a Vatican one.

[Locutus]

Thanks for the link laurentius, that one's going into my Favourites

San Marinese coins look quite nice indeed The Vatican ones appear to be even uglier than the Belgium ones, if such a thing is possible...

[Flandrien]

Originally posted by alva
I 've to come accros a Vatican one.

As if anyone is going to pay in a shop with vatican coins.