Posted 06/23/2011 12:55 pm
Here in Germany you could, and to some extent still can, buy such "decoined" pre-euro pieces fairly easily. I have three of those myself (1 DM, 2 DM and 5 DM, one each). The central bank used so-called "decoiners" to turn the pieces into scrap metal. There is a simple reason why this was done: People turned the old coins in, the central banks would collect them and then sell the pieces as scrap metal to whoever wanted to buy the material.
By "decoining" the pieces, the central banks made sure that they were not coins any more. Cash could have been stolen and redeemed; this way it was much easier and less expensive to transport and store them. In Germany they had eight decoiner locations; each machine would deform 2,500 kilograms of coins per hour.
(Edit) Here is an image of such decoined coins: http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,423522,00.jpg - Note that in DE only the Cu-Ni coins, from 50 Pf to 5 DM, were treated that way. Don't know which denominations were affected in Belgium ...
Christian
By "decoining" the pieces, the central banks made sure that they were not coins any more. Cash could have been stolen and redeemed; this way it was much easier and less expensive to transport and store them. In Germany they had eight decoiner locations; each machine would deform 2,500 kilograms of coins per hour.
(Edit) Here is an image of such decoined coins: http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,423522,00.jpg - Note that in DE only the Cu-Ni coins, from 50 Pf to 5 DM, were treated that way. Don't know which denominations were affected in Belgium ...
Christian
Edited by chrisild
06/23/2011 1:45 pm
06/23/2011 1:45 pm
