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Euro coins: Which ones might be useful to have?

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Euro coins: Which ones might be useful to have?

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Old Jan 29, 2020, 11:02 am
  #61  
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Originally Posted by StuckInYYZ
That's the thing. Here in Canada, they won't give you a token or blank or whatever you want to call it. The cashiers/customer service will exchange currency for you, but if you don't want to pay, they'll direct you to a plastic basket (if available). And this is certainly understandable as too often people take the carts off-site and dump them where convenient to to the taker (often in other parking lots or dumped in ravines/sewer intakes)
Reminds me of what I used to see in the South a lot but seems to have dropped off without any move to coins.

I used to see that kind of cart taking and dumping happening even where the coin slots were required to be used to detach shopping carts for use in Europe. In Europe, when it comes to stores/malls that went from using the coin slots in this decade to removing the coin slots on shopping carts, I used to see the dumping happening more often when coin slots needed to be used than after they have been removed and this kind of change even at stores/malls that had the same or increased traffic. Broken plastic tokens in the coin slots and people using wooden and other workarounds to unlock the carts have their own problems, but I think that some people who used coins seemed to be behaving as if more entitled to take the carts away and dump them. Maybe they will go back to using money for cart release, but then it may be using contactless forms of payment/payment hold, but thats a mess in its own right with costs of various sorts for the cart owners and users.
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Old Jan 29, 2020, 11:20 am
  #62  
 
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Originally Posted by GUWonder
Reminds me of what I used to see in the South a lot but seems to have dropped off without any move to coins.

I used to see that kind of cart taking and dumping happening even where the coin slots were required to be used to detach shopping carts for use in Europe. In Europe, when it comes to stores/malls that went from using the coin slots in this decade to removing the coin slots on shopping carts, I used to see the dumping happening more often when coin slots needed to be used than after they have been removed and this kind of change even at stores/malls that had the same or increased traffic. Broken plastic tokens in the coin slots and people using wooden and other workarounds to unlock the carts have their own problems, but I think that some people who used coins seemed to be behaving as if more entitled to take the carts away and dump them. Maybe they will go back to using money for cart release, but then it may be using contactless forms of payment/payment hold, but thats a mess in its own right with costs of various sorts for the cart owners and users.
With the move to digital, you're likely to see a bigger deposit to unlock the carts (a few malls and a number of airports use a similar station w/cart release that would work with this). It doesn't fix all the issues (in China, the rent-a-bike system.... people leave their bikes everywhere until people get fed up and toss the bikes into the sewer system) but the coin to release works for the most part here. You don't see a lot of carts leave the properties (they also often are paired with a wheel-lock system that locks when you leave the property) but it's also incentive to some enterprising kids who will take the abandoned carts on the outer edge of the parking lots and bring them to the collection points to get at the change....
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Old Jan 29, 2020, 1:51 pm
  #63  
 
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Yes, my local car service people (Germany) don't take cash.
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Old Jan 29, 2020, 6:10 pm
  #64  
 
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Originally Posted by GUWonder
Maybe they will go back to using money for cart release, but then it may be using contactless forms of payment/payment hold, but thats a mess in its own right with costs of various sorts for the cart owners and users.
Originally Posted by StuckInYYZ
That's the thing. Here in Canada, they won't give you a token or blank or whatever you want to call it. The cashiers/customer service will exchange currency for you, but if you don't want to pay, they'll direct you to a plastic basket (if available). And this is certainly understandable as too often people take the carts off-site and dump them where convenient to to the taker (often in other parking lots or dumped in ravines/sewer intakes)
coin-carts prevent parking lots from getting messy (people return to cart corral, store doesnt have to pay a cart pusher to collect carts)

in usa, a lot of stores put anti-theft on carts. if you push them too far away, the lock triggers and you can't use/push it. prevents someone from taking it away too far from store.
some stores go even more extreme (eg:IKEA, there are barricades to prevent cart from leaving building)

different priorities... we can swap/combine technologies
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 1:07 am
  #65  
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Originally Posted by der_saeufer
American and Canadian quarters work in European shopping carts too... I keep a few in the car since I can't accidentally spend them.
Originally Posted by The_Bouncer
This is useful to know. I have a few stray ones lying around.
So do old French Franc coins. And Thai Baht.
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 1:10 am
  #66  
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Originally Posted by LeopoldB
Yes, my local car service people (Germany) don't take cash.
Whose question are you answering?
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 4:28 am
  #67  
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Originally Posted by LondonElite
So do old French Franc coins. And Thai Baht.
So basically, any coin that roughly resembles the right size and thickness?

I've never tested it myself, but I've heard that the back end of a Yale style door key can work too?
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 4:44 am
  #68  
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I have so many old coins lying around that I just keep experimenting!
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 6:52 am
  #69  
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Originally Posted by LondonElite
I have so many old coins lying around that I just keep experimenting!
I just found a handful of 2ZAR coins in the pocket of my shorts. They might work.
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 7:11 am
  #70  
 
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Back to the original topic, I would keep all coins. I keep them in separate wallets in case I need to use them again. For those that I don't think I will ever use again, I give them to my nephew who makes coin collection books. A day or two before I'm scheduled to leave a country, I start disposing of the coins. Often I will dispose of them at the airport (my favourite is via those coins for charities booths).

I've also never heard of any stalls at the airport rejecting the use of coins/bills.
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 8:11 am
  #71  
 
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Originally Posted by The_Bouncer
So basically, any coin that roughly resembles the right size and thickness?

I've never tested it myself, but I've heard that the back end of a Yale style door key can work too?
More or less, yes. There are a couple different setups but the one in the picture upthread with a single slot intended for 50c, €1 or €2 coins is far and away the most common and will take anything close. Quarters, Bosnian 1KM coins, carwash tokens, the round end of the keychain on my bicycle (which is thin enough to be pulled back out), etc.

Since you get the coin back, it's not as if there's much reason to prevent the use of worthless coin-like objects. They just want you to put the cart back instead of leaving it out to get run over.

Back on topic, unless I know I'll be back to the country soon, I try not to have a massive amount of change left over but at the end of the day taking a couple USD/EUR worth of 'useless' change home just doesn't bother me. Plus, little kids love foreign change.
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 8:42 am
  #72  
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I just keep my leftover change in little snaplock bags, like the ones banks give out. Then when I next go to a particular country, I throw the relevant little bag into the front pocket of my hand luggage.
CHF, I just keep in a little box in the centre console in the car for whenever I stray over the border.
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Old Jan 30, 2020, 2:36 pm
  #73  
 
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I prefer the European system with the coins for the carts. So we dont need Cart Narcs to remind the lazybones to put back their carts.
Check out their videos, quite funny.
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Old Jan 31, 2020, 9:20 am
  #74  
 
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Originally Posted by Duke787
I've been to Europe 10+ times over the past 18 months and haven't used cash a single time
Nonetheless, there are restaurants even in places like Amsterdam and Brussels that only take cash, and if you're in a hurry being able to drop a coin into a parking meter or metro ticket kiosk can be a lot quicker.

wg
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Old Jan 31, 2020, 12:29 pm
  #75  
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Originally Posted by Duke787
I've been to Europe 10+ times over the past 18 months and haven't used cash a single time
how do you tip?
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