On the 1st January 2002 the EURO was here. From this moment a Greek turist could do his shopping with Portuguese money in Germany. This means that the inhabitants of the 12 EU countries could use their money in any of the 12 EURO countries.
All have 8 coins. The three smallest, 1, 2 and 5 Cents is made from copper-covered steel, the 10, 20 and 50 centsis made from Nordic gold
and the 1 and 2 Euro is made from nickel brass and copper-nickel. One side is common for all members, while the other is different for each country.
A complete set of EURO coins from 12 countries consist then of 96 different coins.
One side is special for each country, here is Austria:
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| Alpeblomster er avbildet på 1, 2 og 5 Eurocent. | 10, 20 og 50 Eurocent viser forskjellige epoker i Østerrikes histore. | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts portrett på 1 Euro og fredsaktivisten Bertha von Suttner på 2 Euro. |
Since than another 5 of the new EU members have converted to using EURO as the first 12 coountries, which means that another 40 new coins have been added to this group og coins.