Other collecting activities?

Not really easier in the sense that each country has their own designs for the backings of the euro coins, although surprisingly a large number of exchange shops offer full sets of various countries' euro coins in collector's boxes, which make "mint" sets easy to obtain. When I was in Venice last year, I picked up several of these. However, the coins themselves are all (naturally) interchangeable and aside from the backings are exactly the same. Some countries (sorry, Finns, I think the Finland euro set was the worst here :P ) had exceptionally boring coin backings, to boot. At least the old regional/country-specific currencies had some character in that the designs, sizes and denominations differed notably and sometimes very widely. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com -- "I think you underestimate the sneakiness." --------------------------------