Despite its imperfections, it has proven to be better than the alternative of not having it and has created an area of stability
  • daniskarma@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    I remember these little sample bags with all the different coins.

    I still have some of those saved somewhere.

    Also the plastic cards that you tilted and showed a value in € and pts (our old currency).

  • tiredofsametab@kbin.social
    4·
    1 year ago

    I went to Europe in the summer of '99. I still had to get my bank to get me all of the currencies for those countries prior to going and don’t recall having seen Euros at all at that point.

    • federalreverse-old@feddit.deEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      The Euro as a currency was introduced in 1999 and at that point was only used for banks/institutions to interact with each other. Euro notes and coins were only introduced in 2002.

      • tiredofsametab@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        Ah, yeah; that’d explain it. I am kinda glad I got to see all the different countries’ notes and coins. It was a bit of a pain-in-the-ass, though, when a Swiss ATM decided my US ATM card looked delicious. Last leg of the trip was pretty rough without the ability to get cash.

  • Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.worldEnglish
    126·
    1 year ago

    The Euro. solid second or third tier currency. I’m surprised Europeans want to celebrate this also ran fiat currency.

    It was always runner up to the dollar up until the financial crisis. Once everyone realized there was no centralized response from Europe and they had to deal with a dozen different central banks making their own policy it quickly fell out of favor.

    I’d rather carry Yen as an alternative to the dollar than the Euro.