Roland Perry wrote in
:

In message , at 23:43:47 on Thu,
19 Jun 2008, remarked:
So it seems the Dutch have not abolished the 2c after all.

Can they actually abolish it in their country, however?

I don't know. I was simply reporting that it was, in fact, still in
circulation, despite reports to the contrary.

It's one monetary system, which is used by 15 states.

I'm going to France soon and I'll see what the situation is there.

I was in St Omer (northern France) last Saturday, and when buying in the
market, they (consistently) priced with a resolution of 1c and totalled
the bill precisely, but then only charged me the price rounded down to a
5c multiple. So for example, item A was weighed and labelled as 1.28
euro, item B was labelled at 1.59 euro, the total was 2.87 euro and they
gave 15c change from 3 euro.

I imagine they would accept 1c and 2c coins, but I didn't try.

Peter

--
Peter Campbell Smith ~ London ~ pjcs00 (a) gmail.com

"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote in
:

I also wonder what happened to anyone's bank balance that ended in ½p.

My recollection is that the bank current accounts didn't handle ½p amounts
ever.

Long before I had a bank account they had stopped allowing ½d balances, so
you couldn't, for example, write a cheque for £1.2s.6½d. At
decimalisation, there was an approved 'whole penny' conversion scale and
the banks used that to convert every balance on D-day to a whole number of
new pence. So you were never able to write cheques for, eg, £1.23½.

To get slightly back to topic, I don't remember any train fares costing odd
halfpennies (my monthly child season was 4s 11d which was 1/3 of the adult
rate), but I do remember when the Edinburgh buses (and trams) abolished the
last halfpenny fare by putting the child rate up from 1½d to 2d -- it would
be around 1955. I put in a correspondingly inflation-linked claim for a
pocket money increase.

After that fare increase, the maximum adult bus fare in Edinburgh was 6d,
and that was also the maximum fare that the ticket machines could print.

Peter

--
Peter Campbell Smith ~ London ~ pjcs00 (a) gmail.com

In article , (Peter
Campbell Smith) wrote:

To get slightly back to topic, I don't remember any train fares
costing odd halfpennies (my monthly child season was 4s 11d which
was 1/3 of the adult rate), but I do remember when the Edinburgh
buses (and trams) abolished the last halfpenny fare by putting the
child rate up from 1½d to 2d -- it would be around 1955. I put in
a correspondingly inflation-linked claim for a pocket money
increase.

Crikey! I was paying 1 1/2d child fares in London much later than that,
maybe 1960 even.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote in message
...
"Hugh Brodie" wrote in message
...

Speaking of hyper-inflation, it's fun looking at the website of the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe http://www.rbz.co.zw to see the daily exchange
rate of the $Z vs the $US. Yesterday, it was 5,817,000,000; today it's
6,718,000,000. They have just issued $Z 50,000,000,000 notes ("bearer
cheques"). And it will cost you $Z 1,800,000,000 to mail a postcard to
the US. http://www.zimpost.co.zw/postalrates.html


It's a shame that there are no images of currently circulating Zimbabwean
notes or coins.

A few notes here - buying a beer in Hara
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgur...%3Den%26sa%3DG

On the other hand - the Zimbabwe stock market has been one of the best
performing in the world. The industrial index which was at 1,000 a couple of
years ago, is now 5,160,207,611,002.24 .
http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=478&cat=8

Peter Campbell Smith wrote:

I was in St Omer (northern France) last Saturday, and when buying in the
market, they (consistently) priced with a resolution of 1c and totalled
the bill precisely, but then only charged me the price rounded down to a
5c multiple. So for example, item A was weighed and labelled as 1.28
euro, item B was labelled at 1.59 euro, the total was 2.87 euro and they
gave 15c change from 3 euro.

I imagine they would accept 1c and 2c coins, but I didn't try.

The strange thing about France is that several years after going over to
the Euro, many bills and credit card slips still have the amount in
francs as well as euros. I am not sure why this is.

Peter Beale

In message , at 18:11:59 on Fri, 20
Jun 2008, Peter Beale remarked:
The strange thing about France is that several years after going over
to the Euro, many bills and credit card slips still have the amount in
francs as well as euros. I am not sure why this is.

It was like that originally in the Netherlands too (not French francs
though, of course), but it soon went away. It seemed to be linked to
people who hadn't had their menus and price tags reprinted into Euros
yet.
--
Roland Perry

"Peter Beale" wrote in message
...
Peter Campbell Smith wrote:

I was in St Omer (northern France) last Saturday, and when buying in the
market, they (consistently) priced with a resolution of 1c and totalled
the bill precisely, but then only charged me the price rounded down to a
5c multiple. So for example, item A was weighed and labelled as 1.28
euro, item B was labelled at 1.59 euro, the total was 2.87 euro and they
gave 15c change from 3 euro. I imagine they would accept 1c and 2c coins,
but I didn't try.

The strange thing about France is that several years after going over to
the Euro, many bills and credit card slips still have the amount in francs
as well as euros. I am not sure why this is.

Peter Beale
Whilst the French were still using the franc, most people of my acquaintance
in rural France still referred to land and property values in old francs
(which hadn't been around for at least forty years)- very disconcerting when
one heard of something costing X million (centimes). I think they like to
keep some point of reference to pre-existing values, so they've got
something to complain about....
Brian

On 20 Jun 2008 09:58:07 GMT, Rian van der Borgt
wrote:

[---]

A few weeks ago, I bought my annual season ticket (complete NMBS network
+ De Lijn bus/tram) for EUR 2695, for which I payed in cash. From my
bank, I got a mix of 500, 200, 100 and 50 euro notes.

Wouldn't it have been easier to pay with a credit card, or even a
cheque?

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:11:59 +0100, Peter Beale
wrote:

The strange thing about France is that several years after going over to
the Euro, many bills and credit card slips still have the amount in
francs as well as euros. I am not sure why this is.

There was a legal requirement for amounts to be expressed in both
currencies, although I am not sure if that is still in force. But, as
you noted, in practice this is still done. My bank statements are
also still in both francs and euros.

" Richard Hunt" wrote in message
...


The 500 euro note seems to have been designed for wealthy Germans to
transport undeclared cash to and from their Luxembourg bank accounts.


Luxembourg or Liechtenstein?