Poor quality of euro copper coins?

byrnefm · Post by **byrnefm** » Thu May 16, 2002 9:42 am

Hi,

I've noticed that sometimes when I find 1c or 2c coins on the ground that they have already started to rust! Has anyone else noticed this?

(Actually, on the matter of finding coins on the ground, I've noticed a big increase in the number of 'discarded' coins - up to 10cent pieces! A guy I know found about 85c at a bus stop in 1c, 2c and 5c, the most I've found at one time was 23c, also at a bus stop!)

bhoeyb · Post by **bhoeyb** » Thu May 16, 2002 11:55 am

byrnefm wrote: Hi,

I've noticed that sometimes when I find 1c or 2c coins on the ground that they have already started to rust! Has anyone else noticed this?

(Actually, on the matter of finding coins on the ground, I've noticed a big increase in the number of 'discarded' coins - up to 10cent pieces! A guy I know found about 85c at a bus stop in 1c, 2c and 5c, the most I've found at one time was 23c, also at a bus stop!)

Yes, you are right for both:

* 1c, 2c, 5c are made from iron (try with a magnet) with a copper cover. So they'll rust.

* I've been in Ireland for a week and EVERY day, I've found aprox. 20 cent a day in 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c . I've even found a 5 euro note

(My second). My record for 1 day is 5,09 euro

Mostly you can find coins near bus stops. 5 euro was outside the supermarket.
It's like Irish dump their small coins on the streets

I've seen that someone droped a 10c but he didn't took the time to pick it up again. Are Irish THAT RICH?

In Belgium, I haven't found any euro coins yet.

Anyway, I always take time to pick up coins I see. And I've seen 1000s of them

EuroBillTracker · Post by **EuroBillTracker** » Thu May 16, 2002 12:58 pm

Nothing of the sort to report from France ...

Stefan · Post by **Stefan** » Thu May 16, 2002 3:15 pm

Being a teenager, I can't pick up coins just like that. It's uncool and bad for my image, as if I'm really poor!
So, I've gotta be creative and think of ways to pick up coins without drawing too much attention. I'm thinking about a magnet on a string, but I haven't actually made one yet. Are there coins you can't pick up with a magnet?

bhoeyb · Post by **bhoeyb** » Thu May 16, 2002 5:51 pm

Stefan wrote: Being a teenager, I can't pick up coins just like that. It's uncool and bad for my image, as if I'm really poor!
So, I've gotta be creative and think of ways to pick up coins without drawing too much attention. I'm thinking about a magnet on a string, but I haven't actually made one yet. Are there coins you can't pick up with a magnet?

You can only pick up 1c, 2c, and 5c so you won't get very rich

and no 5 euro's eighter

francky · Post by **francky** » Thu May 16, 2002 6:48 pm

EuroBillTracker wrote: Nothing of the sort to report from France ...

I'd found 9 cents (5+2+2) near the RER in NANTERRE PREFECTURE since monday.

micro · Post by **micro** » Thu May 16, 2002 8:28 pm

Stefan wrote: Being a teenager, I can't pick up coins just like that. It's uncool and bad for my image, as if I'm really poor!
So, I've gotta be creative and think of ways to pick up coins without drawing too much attention. I'm thinking about a magnet on a string, but I haven't actually made one yet. Are there coins you can't pick up with a magnet?

Did you ever think of covering the soles of your shoes with magnets? When you start to stumble you know you've got another fortune under your feet

Strange thing: Since the introdction of the euro I didn't find a single coin in the streets! In the pre-euro age I sometimes found some coins.

BTW: When traveling the United States I noticed a lot of cents lying around. People seem to see them as a burden and throw them away. I thought about picking them up, but I didn't want to look like a fool. So I made the (not-so-difficult) calculation that I have to bend down hundred times to get only one dollar, and so I decided it doesn't pay to pick them up.

byrnefm · Post by **byrnefm** » Fri May 17, 2002 10:38 am

The Irish are used to large coins (the largest of the pre-euro coins in use was the pound coin - at 31mm in diameter, for example, and the penny was around 12mm). They used to just dump these into jars usually and caused such a severe coin shortage that the banks around 1991 offered 10% extra for each pound of coppers brought back in! So you know what some did? Get a few pounds of coppers from one bank and give it into another and get the extra 10%

Now with the euro coins, especially the copper coins, people don't seem to like them here! The Irish penny was a nuisance due to its weight and little value (the 2pence weighed 7g!) and since the cent is worth just 0.8p, they're seen as effectively worthless and their small size just seems to emphasize this. I guess we could have gone the way of Finland with rounding to the nearest 5c in grocery totals and get rid of the 1c and 2c but I think people might have thought that the grocers, etc would be trying to rip off the consumer with rounding up more than down...

matt.berlin · Post by **matt.berlin** » Fri May 17, 2002 7:33 pm

Apparently the 1 & 2 Euro coins are slightly magnetic too... so the magnet idea may just be worth it!

Personally, I don't see the problem with the coins going a bit rusty. It's the same with the pennies here and how pfennig coins were. But I have to say, these coins do seem to degrade faster. I think it's actually copper oxide, not rust (which is only from iron, as GCSE chemistry taught me) so when they get really old they go green.

Donald · Post by **Donald** » Sat May 18, 2002 9:28 pm

matt.berlin wrote: I think it's actually copper oxide, not rust (which is only from iron, as GCSE chemistry taught me) so when they get really old they go green.

If it is the same material like old German Pfennigs, they only get green in water or if you keep them in a humid environment for a long time. In daily use the green oxide seems to get worn off. Even 50 years old Pfennigs were only brown - never green. You could also observe rust on coins that were damaged at the edges.

bhoeyb · Post by **bhoeyb** » Mon May 20, 2002 10:29 pm

matt.berlin wrote: Apparently the 1 & 2 Euro coins are slightly magnetic too... so the magnet idea may just be worth it!

Yes, but they are too heavy to pick up with a "regular" magnet

.

avij · Post by **avij** » Tue May 28, 2002 1:28 am

bhoeyb wrote:
matt.berlin wrote: Apparently the 1 & 2 Euro coins are slightly magnetic too... so the magnet idea may just be worth it!
Yes, but they are too heavy to pick up with a magnet .

No they're not -- just use a stronger magnet! The magnet I just used to test this was able to pick up either two 1€ coins or two 2€ coins without problems. The same magnet was able to pick up some 7-9 of 1cent coins.

The magnet I used was about the size of five 2€ coins stacked together.

(edited this post to remove the stupid error I made, I'd better go to bed now to get some sleep..)

Stefan · Post by **Stefan** » Sun Jun 09, 2002 1:42 pm

I've tried a while ago with some tiny magnets I got from wrecking an old toy. The 1€ goes much better than the 2€. Not only because it's smaller and lighter, but also because it's made of magnetic stuff with some non-magnetic stuff around it. The 2€ is just the other way: non-magnetic stuff with some magnetic stuff around it. (I don't bother to find out the names of the metals.)
The ratio magnetic : non-magnetic is much better in the 1€.

micro · Post by **micro** » Sun Jun 09, 2002 2:13 pm

Stefan wrote:I've tried a while ago with some tiny magnets I got from wrecking an old toy. The 1? goes much better than the 2?.

I do not agree. I just tried with a magnet from my fallen-apart kitchen sideboard, and I could pick up 2euro coins, but not 1euro! (The magnet is rectangular and as long as the diameter of a 2euro coin).

BTW, when I was in London 2 weeks ago, I saw an advertisement in the subway (or tube as they call it). It said something like you can't get along without our trendy, ultra-hip magnetic coin-pickup boots for only 495 pounds. To my taste, they looked rather silly than ultra-hip, like big upside-down aluminum pails. There was an Internet address, I thought I would remember it, so I didn't write it down, but now I have forgotten it! Maybe matt.berlin can help, I think he lives there.