Is Anyone Putting Together A Euro Collection And How Is It Going?

I was thinking a 1, 2 and 5 Euro coin from each member state. First year of issue would be pretty cool but as you pointed out would be really difficult unless I had the ability to roll hunt. Which, unfortunately, I don't have that luxury.

I've considered it but the first few searches on ebay were not encouraging, at least when limiting myself to only sellers in the US -- there didn't seem to be that much available, or the lots were bigger than I wanted to purchase. It would be a cool set to pull together, though.

It gets much harder the less exposed you get to Euro coinage. I don't live in the Eurozone, but I do have a bit of a collection, as I try to keep any coin type that I don't have. I can't be too bothered with every date as that would total up to a good amount considering the Euro's almost 20 years of existence (remember that there are Euro coins dated honestly starting 1999, even though they were put into circulation in 2002). There are plenty of nations that are though to get coins from and where you are or where you visit depends largely. As I've made plenty of trips to Finland, Estonia and Latvia, I've got complete sets from these countries, and I've almost completed the new Lithuania set, only missing the 50c. However, I almost never see Maltese or Cypriot coins due to those countries being further away.

And then there are the 'impossibles', Monaco, Andorra and Vatican City.

Don't forget that currencies change. Finland has never used 1c & 2cs. The Netherlands, Ireland and Belgium (?) don't use them anymore. That does not mean that they don't exist - they're legal tender in all countries, and atleast is the case for Finland - have been issued for every year, both as part of sets and in separate rolls. But you're very unlikely to find these, ever, in circulation.

Regarding completing all the dates - that could be very hard. I know straight off that there are plenty of rare Maltese dates. For many countries, certain years have been 'in sets only'.

I'd recommend focusing on one or a few countries rather than all at once, simply because of the diversity. Remember that this is one currency for plenty of sovereign countries that issue their own variant!

Your best bet might be a coin exchange somewhere. Europeans really want US quarter and dollar coins.

Just thinking the weight involved in shipping the Euro coins might exceed the value.

I get quite a number of Aussie $1 and $2 from a contact and I usually repatriate those on one of my Aussie trips. Last time a bank in Coffs Harbour wanted $16 to exchange them through their coin counter - thats because I didn't have an account there. I ended up exchanging them at a liquor store on the highway where the lady was very pleased to get a big bag of change at that time.