As of next year our wallets are going to get a lot lighter. Not because of the January sales but because, as of March 1st ,the amount of small change in our purses and wallets should be reduced by the absence of 10 and 20 heller coins. The Central Bank has decided to take them out of circulation - for the simple reason that they don't circulate.
As of next year our wallets are going to get a lot lighter. Not because of the January sales but because, as of March 1st ,the amount of small change in our purses and wallets should be reduced by the absence of 10 and 20 heller coins. The Central Bank has decided to take them out of circulation - for the simple reason that they don't circulate. Their production cost surmounts their actual value and every year the bank mints 30 million crowns worth of new 10 and 20 heller coins. Allegedly there are over 1.3 billion of them around - but WHERE ARE THEY? According to statistics every citizen has an average 72 ten-heller coins and 53 twenty heller coins stashed away somewhere. Before you think this is ludicrous - I plead guilty. I have more than my fair share of them stashed away at home - a ten litre jar full of them to be precise and I keep adding some every
10 heller coins
other week. This is not because the government has been dallying with the badly needed pension reform. I do not really expect to use this money for anything and I keep shelving the obvious question of what on earth I am going to do about that heller treasure chest when it takes up more space than I do. Like many other people I am too impatient to use these "small fry" - an estimated one-three hundredth of a US dollar - when paying for goods since it takes time to count them and so I have become an unwilling collector of these plain looking coins. Now the Central Bank has resolved my problem and the huge pile of hellers in my kitchen closet will finally stop growing. The ten and twenty heller coins have outlived their time and many people say that this is the beginning of the end of the crown - and of coins as such. I personally am not sorry to see them go - although I cannot throw any away simply because I feel it is a show of disrespect for what they symbolize. Maybe I will keep them to toss into various fountains for good luck because the idea of tossing in a plastic card strikes me as somewhat bizarre. I still havn't worked out what we're going to do about that when coins are no longer available - but it is not a primary concern. I have enough hellers to last me a lifetime.
