EuroZone residents: What's in your pocket?

I am wondering about copper Euro coins. Users who live in a EuroZone country, please let me know about the coins you receive from shops. How many come from a national bank other than your own?

 

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Hello,

For copper, I would say 10%. For 1 and 2 euros coins, much more, as they are all mixed up. I live in France, not too far from Italy.

Cucumbor

 

Here in Belgium I see about 35 % foreign coins, regarding the copper coins.
In my country there still is much use of 1 and 2 eurocent coins, unlike many other eurocountries.
As Cucumbor says: 1 and 2 euro coins are all mixed up: there the percentage of foreign euros is much higher.

bart

 

More questions

Thank you for your responses. I have read earlier this year that several national banks and respective populations wish to discontinue local production and use of the 0,01€ and 0,02€ pieces. The same texts also referenced the fact that the EU has not approved this change. Is this still true? In what countries is this feeling strong? I want to try to assemble a type set of €0,05 pieces. I am intentionally avoiding smaller denominations because I know they are rare and may soon disappear.

Is there intentional mixing by banks or is it allowed to happen naturally? What is the packaging around coins purchased from the national banks by merchant banks? Are coins sold in a stack wrapped in a paper roll? How many coins are in a package of 0,05€ pieces? How much would it cost a private citizen to use a parcel service to send one kilogram to the United States from the country where you live?

Merci, Tanke & Merci

Me gustan las monedas acuñadas con arboles.

 

In Euroland, and I suppose that applies to other areas/countries too, low denomination coins "travel" to a much lesser extent than the medium/high range pieces. I am in North Rhine Westphalia (DE, close to BE and NL) and most of my "copper" is from Stuttgart (DE mintmark F). Quick wallet check ...

2 ct FR 1999
2 ct DE 2002 D
10 ct DE 2002 A
20 ct DE 2007 F (new "map" on the common side)
20 ct DE 2007 G (ditto)
50 ct DE 2002 D
€1 DE 2002 G
€1 AT 2002
€1 DE 2002 F

Well, tomorrow all this may look quite different. Here is a website (in Dutch) that has some statistics about the "diffusion" of euro coins: http://www.eurodiffusie.nl/results

Christian

 

Hmm?

Some national banks use more than one mint? In other words there are mint marks on € coins?

 

In Finland the 1 and 2 ct coins have never "really" been used. By the time the euro cash became legal tender, they already had rounding regulations, ie. when you pay cash, the total is rounded to x.y0 or x.y5, whatever is closest.

The Netherlands started using a similar policy a little later. The legal situation is a little different; stores "may" round to 0/5 but have to state that (usually on a sticker/poster at the entrance or cash register). Nowadays there aren't many stores that do not round.

Legally the 1 and 2 cent coins can of course still be used anywhere in the currency union, even in countries/places where cash totals are rounded. This way the rounding rules are decisions of the member states, not of the EU on the whole. If the Council one day decides that the 1 and 2 ct pieces should be taken out of circulation, that would be a different story.

As far as I know, Belgium may phase out (or reduce) the production of the two small pieces next. Germany on the other hand is a country of penny pinchers - we even had 1 Pf coins (worth half a cent) until late 2001. And doing away with the 1 and 2 ct coins would probably cause an uproar ... :headbang:

As for your further questions, if you get "fresh" coin rolls from the national central bank (NCB; in DE that would be the Bundesbank), they are not mixed. All others, including "re-packed" NCB rolls - are. In most member states, rolls are common; some (Ireland, Spain?) use plastic bags. The standardized rolls have 50 coins in case of the "copper" pieces, 40 coins for the mid-range "Nordic Gold" pieces, and 25 for the bimetallic pieces.

Christian

 

Sure. Actually Germany is the only country in Euroland that has more than one mint - we have four (state owned) mints and even five minting facilities. A is Berlin (the Berlin state mint), D is Munich (Bavaria), F is Stuttgart, G is Karlsruhe (both Baden-Württemberg) , and J is Hamburg.

The other euro countries use mint marks and/or mintmaster signs too. This gets interesting especially when the coins of a country are made in a different country. Luxembourg for example has Dutch, Finnish and French mintmarks on its coins ...

Christian

 

That's what our Minister of Finance, Didier Reynders, declared.
This year it was scheduled that an extra 40 million of 1 and 2 eurocent coins should be struck. This was necessary because of a shortage of these coins. People want to receive the right change (and thus the small coins) but they hoard those coins. To avoid this our Minister of Finance declared Belgium would act like the Netherlands and round off every price on 5 eurocent. So the 1 and 2 eurocent wouldn't be necessary anymore.

As at the moment Belgium has no government to make this kind of decisions, we shall see what the new government decides on this matter.
We had elections on June, 10th, but due to some disagreements between Flemish and French politicians a new government isn't yet formed. Politicians hope to announce the forming of the new government on November, 15th, but it is still uncertain if that will be possible.

Bart

 

Interessantes

It is interesting that you say that, because where I am, I would say that the exact opposite happens.

I live in the States, close to Canada. (445 kilometers) I know this is a long distance by European standards, but North America is bafflingly large. The Canadian $0,01; $0,05; $0,10; and $0,25 coins are extremely similar to the corresponding US$ denomination. Each pair is identical in color, diameter, thickness, and shape (except for a brief period from 1982-1986, when the CA$0,01 was dodecagonal.)

Where I live, I would say between 1:100 & 1:200 cent pieces are Canadian, including dodecagonal ones. I almost never see Canadian 5 cent or 10 cent pieces, I would say 1:50.000 for both. With quarter dollars, I would say 1:5.000.

It is somewhat of an inverted bell curve. I think the fact that there are more ¼ coins than other white-metal coins is for the reason you stated. Large denomination coins travel more than others. (US$1 coins are seldom used and US$2 coins do not exist.)

I'm sure you know all, or most, of what I have said. I don't mean to insult your intelligence.

~
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Why are Candain coins distributed this way in US?


Here is my thinking: People do not look at the copper coins they receive. You could give them amusement park tokens, and I dare to say, only one in twenty people would notice. This is why there are so many Canadian copper coins circulating in the States.

(I was given a token in a roll of ¼'s I bought from my bank. It had been assembled by machine! I never managed to go back and tell them. I guess it makes up for the £1 coin I found in a car park in Scotland.)

People look at white-metal coins, and will not accept CA$0,10 or $0,05.

It has been my experience, having been around people when it happens, that people enjoy receiving a Canadian ¼'s. It is seen as a treat by some US citizens. I have never seen one here with a reverve othen than the ¼ Caribou.

Now that the reverse of the US ¼ has 45 versions (50 by August, 2008) I would even dare say there will be more Canadian ¼'s in circulation.

Guy 1: What's this quarter with a moose on it?
Guy 2: Uh, must be Maine's.
G1: But who's this on the front?
G2: Washington in drag, I guess.

(No offense intended to citizens of the commonwealth of nations.)

~
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Other places on earth like EuroLand

To continue what I was saying about the way in which Canadian coins circulate in the US:

EuroLand is a unique case in that, if a coin leaves the nation where it was produced, it is still legal tender. Strike that. I shouldn't say unique. The Bahamian, and Barbadian dollars are each pegged at 1:1 with the US dollar. Our coins and bills are legal tender in the first two countries. Their coins and bills aren't legal tender here, but I'm sure the coins show up fairly often in change Stateside. (only on the Atlantic coast though)
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Having visited Canada frequently, I know there are shops, often with 100 metres of the border, that price goods in both and accept both as payment. Several specific types of foodstuffs (such as cheese) are much cheaper for Canadians to but in the US. (because of US subsidies in certain agricultural sectors) Shops in certain vacation towns in Florida accept Canadian because so many Canadians winter there.

No current Mexican coin resembles any current US coin. There are likely areas on the US side of the US-Mexico border that accept Mexican pesos. I know US dollars are accepted at a fixed rate (in shops) of 1:10 near the border. There is also likely nowhere in Mexico or 60% of countries on earth where many local people wouldn't gladly accept US. A similar large area, of course, would gratefully accept Euros. (also UK£ and Sw₣?)

~


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Yey, but what are the RULES?

Has the council granted permission to any national bank to cease production totally? Will Belgium truly be permitted to end all production?

Has the council given any hint that it has the power/inclination to allow some national banks to stop while other national banks continue? Would they allow some members to authorize businesses to refuse small coins?

We mean to say, in Finland one can use five ¢1's together, or two ¢2 and a ¢1, or three ¢1's and a ¢2, yes?

 

In Italy we tend to see lots of French coppers, especially the two and 5 cents..

 

Ever so many questions!

Thank you Christian. This is excellent information of great value to me!

I mean to say, do national banks remove some of the coins returned by merchant banks to exchange with other national banks? Or is it the case that national banks re-wrap whatever coins are returned by local merchant banks?

Aren't they plated with real copper?

Does anyone know of a source that will ship to the US, which sells rolls of €0,05 pieces?

Eu gosto das moedas com árvores. 谢谢。
Danke schön a tout le mond que respondieron.

 

How much was a pfennig?

Where are marks located on €0,05 coins? I read in 1999 (or maybe I saw it on Deutsche Welle's English-language television news broadcast in the US) that the Royal Mint (UK) was going to produce some Euros for other EU memebers. Oh, wait. I think that was just blanks. Is that still true?

When you say the old one pfennig coin was worth half a cent, do you mean it was worth 0,005ℳ or €0,005? The UK 1 new p coin (1/100 of a pound) is worth LESS toady (adjusted for inflation) than the old hapny (1/480 of a pound) was worth at Decimalisation Day. Interesting, huh?

 

Excellent!

Opposite of what Christian said about Germany!
Fascinating!!!!!!!!!

This is exactly the kind on anthropological phenomenon I am analyzing for the science museum where I work: How do one cent copper pieces (including non-US pieces) travel geographically within the united states. (We have two types of one cent coins, one with no mint mark, one with 'D' mintmark.)

Again, I don't mean to insult your intelligence by telling you things you already know.

Grazie.
(Io non parlo italiano. Parlo spagnolo e inglese con fluidità. Tuttavia capisco molte cose detto in italiano.)

 

Color, diamete,r and shape, but I think you will find that the Canadian coins are a little thinner than their US counterparts. I know the cent is.

The exchange rate was roughly two marks = 1 US dollar. Since there are 100 pfennig to the mark and 100 cents to the dollar you get 2 pfennig = 1 cent or 1 pfennig = 1/2 cent.

Not really, the dollars I got paid with last week are worth less than half what the dollars I got paid with back when I first started working in 1977 were worth.

 

Depends on which country's coins you are referring to; here are pictures of the 5 cent coins: http://www.ecb.europa.eu/bc/euro/coins/5cents/html/index.en.html

With regard to circulation coins, they made some of the Irish pieces dated 2002 (1 ct, 5 ct) and of the Dutch coins dated 2001 (€2), so the RM "helped out" while the initial supply was being made. But those do not have any special marks. The Royal Mint and some other EU mints, whether in Euroland or not, do however produce various euro collector coins for others.

One cent is €0.01, thus half a cent is €0.005 - well, the precise rate would be 1 EUR = 1.95583 DEM, but for a pfennig we don't need to be that precise.

By the way, when I wrote about how cash travels, I should have explained what I had in mind; I was not referring to "foreign" coins. In the Federal Republic of Germany we first had four mint locations, then (after 1990) five. Each of these locations usually "served" a certain geographic area, ie. coins made in Hamburg would be distributed in Northern Germany rather than in the South. And on average the smaller denominations did stay closer to their "places of origin" than the 2 or 5 DM coins.

Same thing, by and large, with the euro coins. Small denominations will be accepted as change but to a lesser extent carried when traveling.

Christian

 

The way the coin "ordering" and production works here is, in a nutshell, this: A member state government estimates that so and so many new coins will be needed in its country next year. It will then notify the European Central Bank ("Hello ECB, we plan to issue this or that volume.") That is basically it. Now AFAIK the production of 1 and 2 cent coins is more expensive than their face value, so if a government simply decided to stop making those pieces, while they are still needed, it may get into trouble. But if it says, nah, we will round total cash amounts so that these coins are no longer needed, they may well stop making them.

Difficult. Over here coins have to be accepted up to a maximum of 50 per payment. But this "have to" refers to the concept of legal tender, ie. payment of a debt. When you make a purchase, however, a store can limit the means of payment it accepts. You often see signs such as "we do not accept (€200 and) €500 notes", so that a customer knows in advance s/he cannot use them in that store. This makes sense especially when you "consume" before you pay, like in a restaurant or at a gas station ...

Christian