Coins: Why do they all look the same?
Staff at currency exchange booths at Bangkok’s international airport are sometimes wondering about the high demand for 10-baht coins especially from travelers booked on a Europe-bound flight. Some say they want to have the coins to add it to their numismatic collection, others say it’s a souvenir.
It fact, the demand for the coin – valued at about 32 eurocent at current rates – has a more shadowy reason: The Thai coin is almost identical to the 2-euro coin in weight and size, thus it can be used for vending machines across Europe.
Despite the problem is known among vendors and vending machine manufacturers in Europe, the baht coins still work with some machines. While the machines can be adjusted to detect the different surface of the Thai coins, this leads to the effect that vending machines also won’t accept any longer the many different types of 2 euro coins, whose backside motif depends on they country where they originate from, and there are 17 different styles.
However, the Thai baht is not the only coin that resembles the 2 euro coin. Investvine looked closer and found at least 8 other coins that have the same design, colouring and combination of metals. The alloy consists at the inner part of nickel brass, on the outer part of copper-nickel, and most of the coins are minted with similar techniques. While vending machine might not accept all of them, they could be easily traded as 2 euro coins on occasion.
2 euro
10 baht (32 eurocent)
10 Philippine peso (17 eurocent)
1 Egypt pound (11 eurocent)
1 Mexican peso (6 eurocent)
5 South African rand (38 eurocent)
20 Kenya shilling (18 eurocent)
50 Turkish kurus (100/lira) (20 eurocent)
50 Azerbaijan quepik (100/manat) (49 eurocent)
100 Rwanda franc (12 eurocent)
Staff at currency exchange booths at Bangkok's international airport are sometimes wondering about the high demand for 10-baht coins especially from travelers booked on a Europe-bound flight. Some say they want to have the coins to add it to their numismatic collection, others say it's a souvenir. It fact, the demand for the coin - valued at about 32 eurocent at current rates - has a more shadowy reason: The Thai coin is almost identical to the 2-euro coin in weight and size, thus it can be used for vending machines across Europe. Despite the problem is known among vendors...
Staff at currency exchange booths at Bangkok’s international airport are sometimes wondering about the high demand for 10-baht coins especially from travelers booked on a Europe-bound flight. Some say they want to have the coins to add it to their numismatic collection, others say it’s a souvenir.
It fact, the demand for the coin – valued at about 32 eurocent at current rates – has a more shadowy reason: The Thai coin is almost identical to the 2-euro coin in weight and size, thus it can be used for vending machines across Europe.
Despite the problem is known among vendors and vending machine manufacturers in Europe, the baht coins still work with some machines. While the machines can be adjusted to detect the different surface of the Thai coins, this leads to the effect that vending machines also won’t accept any longer the many different types of 2 euro coins, whose backside motif depends on they country where they originate from, and there are 17 different styles.
However, the Thai baht is not the only coin that resembles the 2 euro coin. Investvine looked closer and found at least 8 other coins that have the same design, colouring and combination of metals. The alloy consists at the inner part of nickel brass, on the outer part of copper-nickel, and most of the coins are minted with similar techniques. While vending machine might not accept all of them, they could be easily traded as 2 euro coins on occasion.
2 euro
10 baht (32 eurocent)
10 Philippine peso (17 eurocent)
1 Egypt pound (11 eurocent)
1 Mexican peso (6 eurocent)
5 South African rand (38 eurocent)
20 Kenya shilling (18 eurocent)
50 Turkish kurus (100/lira) (20 eurocent)
50 Azerbaijan quepik (100/manat) (49 eurocent)
100 Rwanda franc (12 eurocent)
