Greek euro coins

Greek euro coins feature a unique design for every one of the eight coins. They were all designed by Georgios Stamatopoulos with the minor coins depicting Greek ships, the middle ones portraying famous Greeks and the two large denominations showing images of Greek history and mythology. All designs feature the 12 stars of the EU, the year of imprint and a tiny symbol of the Bank of Greece. Uniquely, the value of the coins is expressed on the national side in the Greek alphabet, as well as being on the common side in the Roman alphabet. The euro cent is known as the lepto (λεπτό; plural lepta, λεπτά) in Greek.

Because of the fact that Greece did not enter the eurozone until 2000 and was, thus, not able to start minting coins as early as the other eleven member states, a number of coins circulated in 2002 had not been minted in Athens but in Finland (1€ and 2€ - mint mark S), France (1c, 2c, 5c, 10c and 50c - mint mark F) and Spain (20c - mint mark E). The coins minted in Athens for the Euro introduction in 2002 as well as all the subsequent Greek euro coins do not carry any mint mark.

Depiction of Greek euro coinage | Obverse side

An Athenian trireme of
the 5th century BC

A corvette (or dromon)
of the early 19th century

A modern tanker, symbol
of Greek enterprise

Rigas Velestinlis-Fereos
1757-1798, Greek poet

Ioannis Kapodistrias 1776-1831, Greek statesman

Eleftherios Venizelos 1864-1936, Greek politician

Picture of a 5th c. BC
4 drachma coin of Athens
(a coin in a coin)

The abduction of Europa
by Zeus in the form of a bull


Depiction of euro coinage - reverse side / common side


A 2 € commemorative coin
for the Olympic Games held
in Athens. The Discobolos

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/"
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License