Krause lists a 1999 Greek 5 drachmai and 50 drachmai, but I've never seen one listed for sale and other Greek coin sites don't list them. Does anyone know if they actually exist or was this wishful thinking on the part of Krause?
I've seen them around mostly in foreign bins. There's just not a big demand for them so they end up getting lost in the mix. Keep looking though, you'll eventually find'em.
OK, thanks. When Krause just puts a line under the mintage I don't know what to think. Sometimes it means only three were made, or that it was some sort of proof. I'm more concerned with circulating, relatively common coins.
The Schön does list a 5 drachmes coin dated 1999, but not a 50 drachmes piece. (Side note: The plural "drachmai" was used until 1982 only.) Christian
This is going to be one of those coins that Krause says is worthless, but when one finally comes up on eBay it will sell for $30. Recently I bid on a 1990 1 drachma coin, and normally I wait until the last minute, but I thought, for sure no one else will bid on this, so I bid with three days left. It was a 99 cent starting fee, so I bid $4 thinking surely, no one will outbid me. With more than a day left I was outbid. I couldn't believe it. It ended up selling for $4.50 or so, but I couldn't justify going higher.
The line usually indicates an unknown mintage. Unknown as far as Krause is concerned. The may have not gotten the mintage records from the issuing country or the mint as of the time when the catalogue was published. This frequently occurs when a country has a disorganized minting system, too many variant issues, bad or loose record keeping, or they switch to a revalued or new currency. In the case of Greece, I would put it on them changing to the Euro. They may have held releasing the mintage numbers, as well as other records, on purpose when they changed to the euro in order to hide their financial status. Of course, this is all speculation on my part. Nevertheless, it seems to be in line with what's happening in Greece at the moment. Personally I believe they were already under water (financially) when they joined the EU and Euro monetary system. Changing to the euro only made their debt that much greater because the euro was valued much much higher than the Drachma. They should have stayed with the Drachma, paid down their debt and then joined. They wouldn't be in so much trouble if they had. Most of their debt dates back to the 90's and early 2000's.
Obviously there was something weird going on with Greece. Their coinage is unusual because over a period of about 50 years, they only issued maybe 10-12 coins in each denomination. You don't see too many countries like that. That's one of the things that got me interested in collecting Greek coins - I knew I should be able to complete the set fairly quickly. Unfortunately the coins from the 90s are mostly holding me up now.
Also there's the fact that the drachma is the Greek equivalent of the dollar, yet at the end they were producing coins in 50 and 100 drachmes increments. If the U.S. was making $100 coins I think I'd be worried.
There's a coin shop near my parents house that has several 50 and 100 drachmas going for $2.50 each. All from the 1990's. No one ever buys them. I already have them in my collection or I would have purchased them. They've been the for three years now. Nice coins too. In XF to Unc condition. Most still have that brassy tone to them.
Yeah, but people around the world are used to having their currency worth X, and its not always necessarily about a dollar. Its simply your perspective and what you are used to. There is nothing wrong with a loaf of bread costing 50x versus $2, its what you are used to. Look at Japanese Yen as an example of a stable currency that is simply more highly denominated than ours.
I feel like we're heading that way. When my mom was sent to the store to buy bread it cost $0.50 When I was sent to the store it cost $1.00 Now when my son is sent to buy bread it costs $4.50 All thirty years apart. Somethings wrong here. Likewise when my father ordered concrete it was $8 a yard in the early 70's. When I joined his business in 1999 it was $40 a yard. Just before the housing market collapsed it was $125 a yard. The American dollar is X (X=Unknown)
You both make good points about prices rising. When wages are expected to always increase, prices also increase and if you're lucky, everything still costs relatively the same, it's just a higher price. I actually have the 50 and 100 drachmai coins, and if the coin shop is charging $2.50 I'm not surprised they don't sell. I've sold my doubles on eBay at $1 and it took a month or two for them to sell, if they sold at all. The lower denominations are the harder ones to find. The 50 and 100 are big and attractive. There's nothing special about the lower ones, so if people have them, they don't bother to sell them. It's a problem I run into frequently with world coins. It's like you are unlikely to see anyone listing a circulated 2003 Lincoln penny on eBay. Anyone who has one probably figures no one would buy it.
