Joshua Parfitt
PAUSE for a moment before purchasing your next pint or pincho de tortilla – the €2 coin in your hand could be worth €1,000.
This is the top suggested bid on Ebay for a €2 piece minted in 2009 – a tidy 500 times its actual face value.
The mint itself depicts the 10th anniversary of the birth of the Euro currency.
Its intention of the design to celebrate the single currency and, by extension, Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) being the latest step in Europe’s long history of trade and economic integration.
But the childlike image of a stick figure holding hands with the Euro symbol has been much ridiculed and turned it into a collector’s item.
The design was created by George Stamatopoulos, a sculptor from the Minting department at the Bank of Greece, but 8,000,000 pieces were circulated in Spain.
Collector EU coins are not a rarity – each member state is allowed to mint two commemorative coins each year.
Other valuable €2 coins include the 2002 Greek mint depicting the Rape of Europe mythological story.
One of these coins has a suggested bid of €2.5 million on Ebay due a defect that looks like the goddess who gave Europe its name is wearing a ‘sports bra’.
