Greece was one of the first countries I attempted to complete a set of coins from. I like the classical themes of many of the coins, and it is much easier to complete a set than many other countries because coins were only produced in certain years. In fact, there are many more years without coins than years when they were produced. Another benefit is that most coins are fairly common. I assembled many of these out of junk bins at my local coin shop supplemented by online purchases, so they are in varying conditions. Greek coins from the 19th century are mostly scarce, tend to look like they were trampled by horses, and can be rather expensive. There are a few years and dates that are common in this period, but most of them are hard to find. The lowest denomination, only found in the 19th century, is 1 lepton, with 100 leptas equaling 1 drachma. (I may not always get the singular and plural forms of the names correct as I don't speak Greek, but you get the idea). There are a few coins in the 1890s, then nothing more until 1910. There are only a few more between 1910 and the 1950s, with only periodic releases afterward. 1973 has two versions for many of the coins because of a change in government that year. In 2000 Greece switched to the euro, so there is a nice bookend for the collection between the early 1900s and 2000. 1900 and 1901 coins were made for Crete. They look like Greek coins though. I have some but not the complete set. My goals for my collection was to complete a set of circulating 20th century coins. There are a few very scarce and expensive coins that are beyond my means, as are the gold issues. There are also a few low mintage silver commemoratives that I don't have. I have completed my set by these standards, along with some earlier coins I've acquired as a bonus. You can see my collection here organized by denomination, assuming this link works. http://s300.photobucket.com/user/hiddendragon02/library/Greece
While I don't speak Greek either, these two issues are closely connected. After the 1967 military coup, Greece was formally still a kingdom. In 1973 the military regime made the country a republic - one year later the dictatorship ended but Greece continued to be a republic. What would that have to do with the lepton? The long version (as in pretty darn long) is here. In a nutshell, there are two varieties of Greek, Katharevousa and Dimotiki. The former (which consisted of many sub-varieties) was basically used by literate people while the latter was the language of the people, so to say. The military regime strongly encouraged the use of Katharevousa and tried to discredit Dimotiki. So when their regime ended, their language preference fell from grace as well, and in the mid-1970s Dimotiki replaced Katharevousa as the official language. A little later, in 1982, the coins started reflecting that change: The old plural "drachmai" became "drachmes". And the "lepton"? As you wrote, there are hardly any 0.01 coins but if you look at modern Greek coinage, you will see the word "lepto" on the Greek 1 cent coin. The plural is "lepta" as before ... Christian
