What Happens To Old Drachma If Greece Drops The Euro?

The old drachme will remain the old drachme and not become legal tender again.
The Greek euro coins will remain legal tender in the other European countries, as they have the same technical specifications as the other coins.
There are also Greek euro-notes.
They can be identified by a leading Y in the number.
They will also remain legal tender in the other countries as harldy anyone is aware of that...

But there aren't many collectors in Europe who exclusively collect coins from "their" country. And as for the original question, as others have said, the old drachma cash has become worthless (except for possible collector value). The redemption period ended about three months ago, on 1 March 2012 ...

Christian

The vast majority of old drachma coins and notes will have been sold off for scrap, now that the deadline for redemption has passed. The surviving remnant isn't going to be of any use in remonetizing Greece once the dust settles.

Greece would, in such a circumstance, issue "new drachmas". They may not even re-use the "drachma" name despite it's historic association with Greece, perhaps settling on "phoenix" (the name of the original Greek currency in the 1820s) or some other name instead.


I would see Greece as an exception. Language is always a major barrier to cross-cultural coin collecting. The uniqueness of the Greek alphabet makes coins from everywhere else in Europe look as "alien" as Russian or Japanese coins look to English-speakers. Add to this the large Greek diaspora who want to own a piece of the homeland and the prohibition in Greece of private ownership of any artefact (including coins) older than 1826, and you get a situation where the only coins that most Greek coin collectors are willing and able to collect are Greek coins made after 1826. I predict demand for post-1826 Greek coins will be as strong as ever.


One thing I've heard little discussion about anywhere is: if Greece pulls out of the Eurozone, what happens to all the Greek euro coins and Greek-printed notes now in circulation, both in Greece and elsewhere in the Eurozone? Would the ECB still guarantee their full face value, or would they cut them off completely, declaring them Greece's problem? In that case, the euro would split into two separate currencies, with a "Greek euro" and an "everybody else's euro", only they'd all be mixed up together after 10 years of inter-circulation. Sorting and separating the Greek-euro coins and notes out from the rest of the Eurozone physical currency pool would be a huge and expensive task, with "worthless" Greek euros constantly turning up in people's change for decades to come. They might even have to withdraw, redesign and reissue all coins and notes in the entire non-Greek Eurozone to try to prevent this from happening. Abandoning the euro and starting again might be cheaper.

Eventually, "Greek euro coins" would come to be seen as scarce, since they wouldn't have been in the Eurozone for very long (assuming the euro itself doesn't collapse entirely in the near future) and there would therefore be relatively few of them, especially if a mass withdrawal and recycling occurred. But in the short term, the value of Greek euro coins would either stay the same or go down.

While coins and maybe notes are important or us, from a collector's point of view, we all know that they are just a tiny fraction of the money supply. :) Most "other money" could be tracked in one way or another.

Legally it is not possible for any euro country to leave the currency union but stay in the European Union; Greece would have to leave the EU. But let us assume that some way could be found around this. Then the "Greek euro" cash that I have right now, for example, would simply continue to be euro cash. In Greece, however, the cash supply could be limited - this way the Greek could not withdraw much euro cash before a cash changeover. Maybe this could be combined with extra searches for "undeclared" cash if anybody travels from/to Greece.

And yes, nobody knows how long the euro will be around. Its base has, as I have written many times before, never been very stable but quite a few here in Europe thought it would work as some other European projects have worked: Let's get it started, even with flaws, and then fix the flaws "en route". Has not really worked his time. But all this mourning - or cheering, depending on which part of the world one is in - may be a little premature ...

Christian