Netherlands ECU help please.

[Dave13]

I have two commemoratives from the Netherlands they are both 2 1/2 ECU they are in proof like condition one is 1993 the other is 1995 I cannot find them in Krause does anyone have any information on them I'm mostly interested in mintages.


http://www.neocollect.com/item/5587/
http://www.neocollect.com/item/5588/

I have a feeling that they might not be "real" coins but maybe some sort of pattern? Thanks for any help you can give.
Dave.

[chrisild]

Excellent feeling. The ECU was a mere currency unit, but some mints in Europe made ECU "denominated" medals for collectors. They were not legal tender* but some may have been used at Europe Info Days and the like, so maybe they could be considered in-betweens.  Also, the Royal Dutch Mint minted the two (at least the first one) and quite a few other, similar issues. Probably one more reason for collectors to be interested. According to this page, the Maastricht piece had a mintage of 50,000 ...

(* Strictly speaking there were differences; the Belgian ECU coins for example were actually legal tender. But of course they were not in circulation.)

Christian

[Dave13]

Thanks for the reply I've been googling around looking for them myself I've seen others with mintages from 50-60,000 so Im quite pleased to have them. I did not buy them as coins they where in a bag of about 30 medals and tokens I bought quite cheaply because I liked the look of some of the other medals in the bag but two proof like low mintage "coins" in their plastic case would probably be better than most of the other stuff I got in the bag.So thanks again.
Dave.

[Figleaf]

These are medals. The top one is from along series with popular designs. If I remember correctly, they were issued by a Dutch coin wholesaler.

Peter