QUOTE(28Plain @ Jun 21 2005, 03:29 AM)
Counterfeiting modern coins wouldn't be very cost-effective, would it? Unless there are circulating 5 and 10 euro coins, it would seem to me that counterfeiting would cost more than could be realized by passing the coins.
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Yes, counterfeiting notes is much more profitable indeed :-) And yet, in 2004 Europol confiscated 140,000 fake euro coins. In Germany alone, about 50,000 counterfeits were found in the same period of time. Most of them (more than 90%) were €2 pieces.
Many of the fake coins are used in vending machines and the like, not so much for "face to face" payments. One problem we have in Euroland is that the coins are made in 15 mint locations, and despite common production standards there still are differences that the testing devices in vending machines have to allow for.
Now the higher the "tolerance" is in such a case, the fewer legitimate pieces will be refused by a vending machines - but it may also accept certain counterfeit or foreign coins more easily. From what I read about this new optical recognition technology, it can handle such problematic cases, especially when combined with other (conductivity etc.) testing methods ...
Christian