My buddy brought me back a couple coins from his mission in Brazil and one of them is a 2002 50 centavos, It looks like this:



Just today my Boss got back from a trip to Europe and brought back some Euros for me. As he saw the Brazil 50 cent on my desk he asked what Euro country that was. I told him it is not a Euro. He stated it sure looked like one. And I have to agree:



Anyone have any thoughts to why the design is so close to the same?

-Bobby

yeah, I noticed the same when someone gave me a bunch of brasil coins a year ago.

I've got the 1, 5, 10 and 25 centavos and the 1 real, similar designs:
(borrowed pics)






Why?

Heh, compare the €1 coin and the Brazilian 1 real coin.





The euro and cent coins were designed in late 1996/early 1997; the winner was chosen in March 1997. Now the Brazilian real pieces were first issued in that "stars and stripes" style in 1998, but I do not know when they were designed.

"PS" - That was meant to be a reply to Bobby's initial message. In this order it looks a little odd ...

Christian

I havent come across many "pairs" of coins like this...

Is it at all common for countries that have nothing to do with eachother to have similar coinage? (speaking from a design point of view... obviously it would be common for any country to have a 1 unit coin ect)

-Bobby

I like the Brasil designs. They certainly are "Euro". Perhaps it's preparation for Brazil becoming part of the European Community.

You have to notice that Uzebekistan did something similar and I had a good laugh. Perhaps it is the parallel line aspect and a country minted on the coins which make it very euro "like"

Examples:





Sorry for the crappy pictures - hope you get the idea though

You have to wonder if some bureaucrat in the mint thought that by making the coins look like a Euro, that they will quack and walk like a Euro and keep their value like the Euro instead of declining precipitiously; like these countries like Brazils currencies typically do.

The Euro is supplanting the $ as the world's currency.

Certainly not - but just as you would not invest all your money in stocks of one company, diversification also makes sense currency wise. For example, instead of having the price of oil expressed in just one currency (USD) only, it could be based on two or more. As for the maps and stripes, I don't think there is anything wrong - copyright issues and such aside - with one coin design being "inspired" by another. (Elsewhere I mentioned how similar the Latvian sentim and German pfennig coins are.) Now a blatant copy would be a different story, but that is not the case in the examples shown here ...

Christian