The Greeks may not be good at balancing a budget, but I think they make a lot of very nice coins. This one in particular I just love. 1973 20 drachmai.
It's funny because modern Greek coins are full of ancient gods and goddesses and mythical creatures. That's what I like about them.
It's a 500 drachma coin minted to commemorate the 2004 Olympic Games http://www.fleur-de-coin.com/currency/greek500drachmas.asp
While the design with Selene is quite attractive indeed, let's keep in mind that this coin - issued during the military dictatorship, hence the soldier on the other side - is basically a copy of an earlier piece. See this image (from worldcoingallery.com) of the 20 drachmai coin issued in 1960/65: Christian
Another interesting thing about the modern Greek coins is that they didn't mint them every year, and they didn't stick with any designs long. So for a given denomination, there might be five different designs in 20 years. Must have been confusing to the Greeks but it makes collecting them interesting. I don't know if this was because of different governments coming to power or what.
I think that had something to do with the tumultuous period of the '60s and '70s. In 1967, there was a military coup, but the then-king, Constantine, who had acceded to the throne in 1964, remained as head of state until he was forced into exile in late 1967, but he was still depicted on some Greek coins. The leader of the military coup, Colonel Papadopolous, was himself ousted in 1973, then in 1974 the military dictatorship got into trouble by trying to meddle in Cyprus (sort of like the Argentine dictatorship and the Falkland Islands), and the dictatorship in Greece was toppled. Then in 1975, the monarchy was abolished (the same year that Spain reinstated its monarchy).
And yet another Greek design...,, This one perhaps finest known for the issue. Purchased raw as a 4 coin set from Mark Teller about 10 years ago. My only regret being that I sold off the silver pieces to help pay for the gold. Should have hung onto them all instead. At the time, the set was advertised in World Coin News for $750 in one of Teller's ads. I just happened to be the lucky first guy out of about 75 people to call-in wanting to buy the set at that price. I got about $250 combined on eBay selling off the silver 100 and 50 Drachma raw, then sent the remaining gold coins in for grading. The gold 20 Drachma came back as MS67 and is much more proof-like.
What a great web-site. I especially like the 2 drachma coins listed, those are some great designs, every one of them. The only downside to my visit being the 1963 Greek 30 Drachma coin I saw on the site, which reminded me of what seemed like an endless supply of those at one time. A local coin dealer had about 10 rolls of them, 20 coins per roll, all of them sparkling gem BU. He sold them to me at melt, I couldn't afford all of them at once, had to make trips over there spanning a few weeks. Was paying him about $45 a roll at the time, and I was fetching about $125 a roll on eBay. Which seemed like a real killing at the time. Today, a single one of those coins is worth about $50. And to think I had sold-off about 200 of them as quickly as I could get rid of them without saving a single example! Also sold off about 6 rolls of the 1964 issue the same way, though for whatever reason those were never considered as desirable.
I LOVE modern Greek coins, 1973 to be precise. And a few of the special commems. I'll post pix later of a few. Along with France and Cyprus I believe them to be of the most beautiful designs in Europe of modern time.
