Stupid Euro Question
 

I have noticed that the Euro is printed differently for each country participating. The same on one side, but for the individual country on the other. Is there any tourist scams going on where a merchant or other refuses to accept Euros from other countries and/or offers to exchange or says the rate is different? I have never see the Euro at work and I am used to: 4 Marks to the Dollar; 624 Lire to the Dollar; Francs for wishing wells. Well, just a stupid post adding to the Ugly Ignorant American image.
Anyway Happy Holidays to all......Rich

No, the Euro is printed to show on one side on various currencies the countries participating with the Euros. There evidently has been some counterfeit money, but that is true everywhere.

No, luttrell, I haven't witnessed or heard about any such "scam" since the euro was introduced in 2000. A euro is a euro is a euro, no matter which country it originates in. In fact, the practice of having each country puts its signature on the coins has encouraged a lot of collecting of the coins.
I don't understand why you might think a merchant wouldn't accept his own currency as payment or why he would be credible trying to scam someone into thinking the "rate is different." There's one rate for the euro, period, and I should think anyone traveling would understand that.

Yes Euro notes are all the same, no country variations. But i found recently that 50 euro notes can be hard to spend as many places had signs saying they wouldn't take them. Appears counterfeiting is rife. In fact many stores i saw had scanners and would even scan 5 euro notes.

Not unlike those quarters with various states on them that we have. Can you imagine a 7-11 in Ohio refusing to accept a quarter with Virginia on it?

I found that most of the ATM's that I used spit out 50 Euro bills. Only one that I can remember gave me 20's. I tried to cash the larger bills into smaller ones every chance I got.

4 marks to the dollar? You are really dating yourself. ((a)) ((b))

As PalQ notes, larger-denomination euro notes are sometimes eschewed by merchants, but in my experience it's mostly at outdoor markets or antique fairs or such where people are a bit skittish about counterfeiting. Also, it's been a longstanding practice in Europe for merchants to check the watermarks on bills to verify authenticity.
But now that I think about this a bit more, wouldn't it have been a LOT easier for scams to occur BEFORE the euro? I mean, if a shady merchant wanted to dupe an unsuspecting tourist, say in that little triangle where Switzerland and Austria and Italy all meet up, wouldn't it have been fairly easy to prey upon tourists' lack of knowledge about the true exchange rate between the dollar and the lira, schilling, and Swiss franc?
Not sure where you're coming from, luttrell.

It's not at all a stupid question, but your phrasing is odd.

Euro notes don't differ at all from country to country. But the Euro itself doesn't exist as a note. Like most other hard currencies, it exists only as a coin. And Euro coins - as well as the other coins in the system - do differ from country to country on one side.

It would be quite understandable if merchants didn't accept "foreign" Euro coins. The English, for example, generally don't accept the notes issued by Scottish commercial banks. And the Scots, who get into a lather about this, don't accept the notes issued by Northern Irish commercial banks. You may dislike this. But it's not a scam.

Fortunately, merchants in the Eurozone don't have to deal with such grasping banks as the British (where merchants are penalised for paying Scottish or Northern Irish notes into their accounts). Or the banks have different ways of earning their dishonest Eurocents. In any case, Euros from Ireland are accepted without question in Greece.

Perfectly sensible question. You've confused everyone though by the verb "printed".

I think you would have a hard time cashing a 100 euro note in Dublin. They are not often used and people are wary of counterfeits. Fifty notes are more common now and there are problems with counterfeits so many places have the scanner in newsagents etc. Its for their own protection.

flanneruk, with all due respect what are you trying to say? Most of us know what Luttrell meant, and are content calling a 50 euro piece of currency a "printed note". Since the proper plural of Euro is Euro, it is easy to accept the idea of a printed Euro note! With the plural and singular being the same for Euro, it is easy to accept Luttrell's phrasing, isn't it?

Patrick, I think Flanner's trying to make the difference between notes and coins. 'Printed notes' DON"T differ from country to country, whereas coins do, and you wouldn't necessarily use the term 'printed' for coins, would you? (Stamped? Embossed? Engraved? Someone help me here!!!).

He's also being his usual pedantic self by pointing out that 'a euro' isn't printed, because we don't have a one euro note - only a coin.

That's it - I'm backing out now.

>4 Marks to the Dollar; 624 Lire to the Dollar; Francs for wishing wells.<

My goodness! How many packs of cigarettes to rent an apartment for a month? :)

Kate, minted ?

To Ira... a Dollar Sixty $1.60 carton of Winstons or Marb...s went for 10 Mille or 10,000 Lira. To the others I am sorry as I was under the misconception that the paper bills were like the coin...Sorry all...Rich

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_banknotes has everything you would want to know about the euro, if you're not familiar with it.

The coins have one side common to all countries and on the back the image is designed by the country issuing it. The euro notes are all the same no matter which country prints them, except that you can tell which country printed a particular note by looking at the first letter in the serial number. (See the above web page for the table)

Oooh, for europhiles, look at http://www.admirabledesign.com/-Designs-de-l-euro- : it shows rejected (but admirable) designs for the euro. These are the "euro notes that never were..."

It is not such a 'stupid' question. I know of someone who travelled from England to France, changing sterling for the Euro and on return felt he had to go to a change office to exchange them as he was travelling a couple of weeks later to Italy. We all know you do not have to do this but as I said, your question is not so 'stupid'.

For once I'm not being at all pedantic. In fact, quite the opposite

Lutrell has noticed that the Euro's printed differently from country to country. Some of you - pedantically -have claimed that's not the case. In fact the Euro IS - well, minted, coined, embossed, whatever - differently from country to country. And it's perfectly reasonable to expect merchants to discriminate.

It's also reasonable for Lutrell to assume that what's true of coins must be true of the banknotes. In fact, it's pretty odd that it's NOT true of the banknotes.

Let Kate's posting be a lesson to you all. You try to defend someone and get lambasted for pedantry.

No good deed ever goes unpunished.

Gee, flanneruk, since I'm the one who first questioned you, I certainly hope you aren't considering my post "lambasting" you for pedantry!

I guess I was thinking about notes as well as coins and it didn't occur to me that the notes didn't change from country to country.

If you regard "with all due respect what are you trying to say?" as somehow a "lambasting" post, then I suggest you loosen up. You didn't explain yourself, but Kate did for you. I have seen the light and now understand what you meant, thanks to Kate. No offense meant.

Minted! Why didn't I know that!

Glad to see you boys are kissing and making up. Sort of.

On a frivilous note, I like the Italian coins best. Of course ours would be the most boring, as we'd just have Her Maj's head on them.