Since coming to Germany many years ago, I’ve been toying with the idea of building up a collection of euro coins. Germany is located strategically in the middle of Europe, a convenient stop for Europeans from the east and west, as well as from the north and south. It’s been seven years that I’ve been staying in Europe (OMG, that long??) ! It’s almost sad to say that my euro coins collection is still modestly, if not dismally, small.

So what’s so interesting about the euro coins, you may ask?

There are, as of today, 16 EU members using the euro as their sole currency. The euro coins are especially worth a second glance because each coin has a common side, one which depicts the value of the coin, and the national side, the side portraying an image that represents each EU members respectively.

As the euro was first introduced in 2002, I still recall the craze for the euro memorabilia. You can find nowadays, all sorts of coin albums imaginable to store your collection of euro coins.

So what’s preventing me from building my euro coins collection? Well, for a start, there are the official euro coins from every EU countries, which does not come cheap if you were to collect from all 16 countries. However the twist is, the most desired versions are those 2€-commemorative editions coined to mark certain special occasions, no pun intended.

For example, the special 2-Euro coin from the Vatican to mark for the pontification of Pope Johannes Paul II in 2004, costs about 99,90Euro! (Who in the sane state of mind will pay 99,90Euro for a 2Euro coin?)

So I’ll leave my coin collections to luck and fate, for now. Every time I receive some euro coins, I’ll automatically flip over to its image side, to discover its origin. It always amazes me when I stumble across coins from countries like Spain, Finland, Greece or even Portugal! Don’t you think that it’s a strike of fate that the coin ‘traveled’ all the way across Europe and land in your hand?