Received in change

[chrisild]

Yes, people should carefully chaeck their change. Well, sometimes it just does not happen ... And no, I don't think that people/stores will stop accepting cash. Apart from the map update, each and every euro and cent coin has the same common side, and it does not take much to identify that side. Have stores in the US stopped accepting quarters just because there are dozens of different designs? No. You may run into the occasional jerk, but then it would be primarily that person's problem, not mine.

Christian

[Figleaf]

So what's the practical difference between the common euro sides (2 variants) and the queen's head on al the commemoratives? Also, those circulating commems in the US are not circulating to any great extent. A few states quarters, the rest are seldom seen.

Peter

[FosseWay]

The theoretical difference between the common side of euro coins and the Queen's head is that the latter is not found exclusively on coins that are legal tender in any single country or currency union, whereas the euro reverses are. In other words, you can't say that any coin with the Queen's head on it is legal UK currency, because Canadian, Australian etc. coins aren't, but you can say that any coin with the map of Europe and the text '1 euro' is valid in any member state of the eurozone.

However, my earlier point was that Canadian, Australian etc. coins are all sufficiently different in other ways from UK coinage that anyone who isn't a complete halfwit should be able to tell the difference. The only grey area is with Dependency coins, which as I said should be made legal tender across the sterling area.

[<k>]

Canadian, Australian etc. coins are all sufficiently different in other ways from UK coinage that anyone who isn't a complete halfwit should be able to tell the difference. The only grey area is with Dependency coins, which as I said should be made legal tender across the sterling area.

The Crown Dependencies are Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man. They use the UK pound sterling as we in the UK do. Like Scotland, they are allowed to use their own variety of banknotes and unlike Scotland, their own coins too. I agree that all the aforementioned coins and banknotes should be legal tender throughout the UK and Crown Dependencies.

However, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, and St Helena and Ascension each use their own pound, which they keep at par with the UK pound sterling. Each uses a currency board to maintain its own pound. The anchor currency in each case, however, is the UK pound sterling. So each, e.g. Gibraltar pound is backed 100% by the UK pound sterling. Neverthless, it would be theoretically possible for Gibraltar to spend away part of that backing. The Cook Islands did that in 1994, when the New Zealand banks discovered that the Cook Islands dollar was backed only 95% by the New Zealand dollar - not 100% as they had claimed. The New Zealand banks refused to accept it thereafter, and that was the beginning of the end of the Cook Islands dollar. The danger, then, is that the same could theoretically happen to the Falkland, Gibraltar, or St Helena pound. I suspect it never will, but I would be unwilling to stick my neck out and guarantee it, if that were my responsibility.

[villa66]

...each and every euro and cent coin has the same common side, and it does not take much to identify that side. Have stores in the US stopped accepting quarters just because there are dozens of different designs? No. You may run into the occasional jerk, but then it would be primarily that person's problem, not mine.

Christian

But all the 50 state quarters, the 6 DC and territorial quarters, and now the several Park quarters do also share a common side, with the Washington portrait (somewhat modified!) that dates from the first Washington quarters of 1932.

And Fig, by the way, is not correct about the circulating commems, not beyond the dollar coins, anyway. The several Lewis and Clark nickels, and all the many state and other quarters are very frequently seen in circulation, with allowances made for relative production levels and natural attrition, of course.

v.   

[chrisild]

But all the 50 state quarters, the 6 DC and territorial quarters, and now the several Park quarters do also share a common side, with the Washington portrait (somewhat modified!) that dates from the first Washington quarters of 1932.

Yes, that was my point: One side is the "same as usual", and the other side is "specific" (issue specific, country specific ...) - that applies to the state quarters, the Lewis & Clark nickels, or the Lincoln commemorative pennies. OK, in the euro area there may be a few more obverse designs of this or that denomination. But what people will check to see what they have is the common side. And that has (apart from minor map modifications) not changed since the euro cash first came out ...

Christian

[villa66]

...Apropos of receiving weird stuff in change -- When I was in (West) Germany in 1989 just after the fall of the Wall, I received in change a 5-mark coin from the 1930s with Hindenburg on one side and a swastika on the other. I can only presume that visitors from the DDR had dug up whatever currency they felt they could pass on their no doubt very expensive first trip to the west, thus allowing all manner of oddities to enter circulation. Of course, I was in the money, as the silver value alone was more than 5DM, and the coin was in EF.

Is a coin that you still own, by any chance? Any chance you could say what date and mint?

v.

[FosseWay]

Yes, I still have it, but I misremembered the date -- it's 1936A, and VF not EF. (I have 1935G in EF but bought that in the normal way.)

[Ukrainii Pyat]

Speaking of commemorative things in change, the one I haven't yet gotten is the 2005 Canada 5c with the V for Victory reverse commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII.  I have even seen the 2011 dated 5c coins in change, actually a lot of them.

[villa66]

Yes, I still have it, but I misremembered the date -- it's 1936A, and VF not EF. (I have 1935G in EF but bought that in the normal way.)

Thanks.

v.

[Prosit]

My entire collection of five cent coins from Canada consists of 1980, 2000, 2006 P, no P and privy marked.
Don't think I have ever seen that V coin.
Canada hasn't been my focus yet except for a date run of Cents.

Dale

Speaking of commemorative things in change, the one I haven't yet gotten is the 2005 Canada 5c with the V for Victory reverse commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII.  I have even seen the 2011 dated 5c coins in change, actually a lot of them.