Collectors go euro crazy over Vatican and San Marino coins

Date: 25/04/02

By Laurence Frost

EURO coin sets are selling for up to 150 times their face value in high street shops, as single currency fever among collectors sends prices rocketing for some of the rarer issues.

Sets of Vatican euro, comprising one coin of each denomination, adding up to €3.88, are available in Brussels shops with a price tag of €580 - and are selling like hot cakes, according to staff.

'We've had a huge demand,' said Arlette Moise, sales assistant at the Eurotempo souvenir shop on rue du Marché aux Herbes. 'We certainly didn't expect all this enthusiasm for collecting the coins.'

Moise said her suppliers could soon run out of the coins from the Vatican, as well as those issued by Italy's other mini-state, San Marino.

At €480, the San Marino coins are only slightly more affordable than the papal set - and both have disappeared from ordinary circulation thanks to their value as 'collectors' items.

'If people prefer to keep them instead of using them then it's up to market forces,' said Gerassimos Thomas, spokesman for EU economics chief Pedro Solbes.

'There's nothing that can be done about it.'

Thomas said future issues of San Marino and Vatican coins would have a lower value to collectors, and would be more likely to stay in circulation.

Thomas added that Commissioner Solbes would be holding onto his own Vatican euro set, presented to him last month by a papal envoy, despite its premium market value.

'He has no intention of selling,' he said.