Israel to Get New Series of Coins

[Bimat]

Bank of Israel to replace all coins

Decision follows replacement of banknotes, aims to prevent forgeries and reduce cost of metal used to manufacture coins

Gad Lior
Published:    04.24.11, 10:23 / Israel Business

The Bank of Israel is planning to change the country's current series of coins after 25 years, following a recent government decision to change all of the State's banknotes, Yedioth Ahronoth has learned.

The decision is aimed at preventing forgeries, reducing the cost of the metal used to manufacture the coins and changing the current name – "new Israeli shekel" – to the previous name – shekel – on all new coins issued.

The current series of coins has been in use since September 4, 1985, when the shekel was renamed "new Israeli shekel". At the time, 1,000 shekels were replaced with one new shekel.

The first coins issued in the current series were 1 agora, 5 agorot, 10 agorot and 1 shekel. The 5-shekel coin was issued in 1990. The 10-shekel coin, which was the first coin in Israel to be comprised of two types of metal, was issued in 1995, and the two-shekel coin followed in December 2007.

The plan is to issue a whole new series of coins with new designs, which have yet to be decided on. The central bank's advising committee, headed by retired Judge Jacob Turkel, will discuss the new design.

The Bank of Israel refused to officially comment on the coin replacement issue, but a reliable source confirmed the report.

Source: YNETNews

[Bimat]

The Bank of Israel is planning to change the country's current series of coins after 25 years, following a recent government decision to change all of the State's banknotes, Yedioth Ahronoth has learned.

More details can be found here.

Aditya

[Figleaf]

Interesting. The first argument is that the current series has been running for 25 years. I am sure this group can come with coin types that have been running longer, even longer than a century.

Of course it has become more and more feasible to make good forgeries, and the article does mention preventing forgeries. I wonder if someone thought of making forgeries as a way to wage economic war and destabilize the country. I guess forging banknotes is more effective, but judging from the spate of fake UK pound coins in circulation, it does make sense to forge coins.

The current Israeli coins are quite small to begin with. Maybe they can be made thinner to save metal?

Changing the name may be the most important reason of all. Israel is overcoming a bout of high inflation (it helps when import prices stagnate.) They may expect that another reform will not be necessary.

Peter

[malawi]

Thanks for the news !
I appreciate the coins of Israel