Euros Hot at World Money Fair By Tom Michael
February 04, 2008
My past week has been spent at the World
Money Fair in Berlin, Germany. This is without much
doubt the world's largest show for Mints, Central Banks,
coin equipment manufactures and suppliers. In short,
it's the single best numismatic trade show on the globe.
With that in mind, let me say that my
concentration this week has been heavily skewed towards
modern issue coinage, the Berlin show's greatest strength.
With mint announcements about new issue programs and
all the choices available to the general collector,
interest still seems strongest in Euro coinage. When
dealers dropped prices for special offers, even if only
for a day or an hour, people swamped their booths with
money in hand, ready to buy.
Dealers who had only classic 19th Century
material seemed to have good activity on the first day of
the show, presumably from regular numismatic customers. General
public sales gravitated towards Euro coins, both circulation
issues in special packaging and proof collector coins in silver.
- The first European silver one ounce bullion
coin, Austria's silver 1.5 Euro, sold like wildfire on its
first few days of issue here at the World Money Fair in Berlin.