Good Evening! I was perusing my latest edition of Coin World (09May2011) and noticed an interesting article on Page #188 entitled... "Norway's central bank pulling plug on 50-ore coin...Bank to withdraw smallest coin, revoke its legal tender status" What struck me as interesting is that the 50-ore coin has the purchasing power of approximately nine (9) US cents! This underlines the fact that the US quarter has the same purchasing power as the 1964 cent and the US penny, nickel, and dime should be retired...and their "legal tender status revoked". That's not likely to happen any time soon, but "a word to the wise"...if it did, the FED would likely destroy any unreleased coins...which could "potentially" create some modern rarities. :thumb: It's like musical chairs...when the music stops, everyone will be fighting for a place to sit. It might not be a bad idea to salt away a few of the modern rolls...just in case.
People in the "Nordic" countries tend to have a different attitude when it comes to cash. In Denmark, Norway and Sweden the smallest coin has a value that is much higher than the smallest USD or EUR piece. Like this ... 50 öre Sweden: 8 cents ($) or 6 cent (€) 50 øre Norway: 9 c ($) or 6 ct (€) 50 øre Denmark: 10 c or 7 ct The Danish coin is still around, the Norwegian piece can be used for another year (until the end of April 2012), and in Sweden the 50 öre coin became invalid in September 2010. The Norwegian Bank's comment sums the different attitudes up quite nicely: "The 50-øre coin is being withdrawn because it no longer circulates as an ordinary coin used for payment. While it is used in shops to give change, customers largely put the coins aside rather than use them for subsequent payments. This means that Norges Bank needs to produce a large number of 50-øre coins, even though there are a sufficient number of coins already in circulation." And people in those countries are by and large OK with that. If you tried to introduce similar rules in the US (or Germany for example), however, people would complain. Guess there is also a psychological factor involved - if you still have a "0.01" coin, it is harder to away with it than if the smallest coin is a 0.10 or 0.50 piece anyway ... Christian
