Vor einiger Zeit habe ich meinen griechischen Tauschpartner in Athen auf die Olymia-Münzen "gehetzt"......gestern bekam ich per mail diesen Bericht von ihm:
***The great untold story of Greek commem coins***
- According to the site eurogedenkmuenzen.net - one of the best sources on Greek coins info - the first three Greek commem coins (2 silver+1gold) would be available in March 2003. So around mid-March, I passed from the Bank of Greece (the issuing authority for Greek coins) and asked if they were available. The lady at the information counter told me that the coins are being issued by the BoG, but the sole distributor is the organising committee of the 2004 olympics. She also gave me their phone number for additional details.
- A couple of days after that, I called the number of the organising committee, and asked for details about the coins. I was given the following info:
. Silver coins (proof, 10 euro-denominated) would cost 40 Euro each. Gold ones would be 400 euro each. This places the Greek state at around the same swindling-level with the French one.
. The coins would indeed be available until the end of March.
. They would be sold at post offices. (There is a counter in each post office selling overpriced olympic souvenirs - that's right, souvenirs from 2004 sold in 2003).
- During the next couple of weeks, I paid several visits to the post office nearest my work. The clerk at the olympic trinkets counter told me she hadn't been told anything, and she only knew of the existence of the coins from other prospective buyers. The end of March passed, but the coins didn't appear. Then mid-April passed, and the coins were still not there. I made a couple of phone calls to the organising committee, but Easter was approaching, and the person responsible was apparently on leave. So all I managed to do was speak with the person at the switchboard, who forwarded my call to a dead line.
- Then came the day when I prepared your packages. I went to the post office again to send them, and as has become customary, I asked the clerk if she knew anything about the coins. She told me she had not seen them yet, but that another would-be buyer had told her that he had found them at a shop nearby.
- Back to the olympic committee. This time the vacations had passed, so the responsible was there. He told me that the coins were indeed available. After all, they were not sold through the post offices, but through a private company. He gave me their phone number for more information.
- I called this number, and got the following info:
. addresses of several shops which sell the coins.
. It had been announced that in a few days (that is, during the previous week), a specific bank would also sell them - but she didn't know if this would really happen.
. The weight of the coins was 30 grams for the silver ones, and 10 grams for the gold ones. The weights did seem inaccurate, and they also did confirm my suspicion that the gold coins would be a complete ripoff. That's good in a way, the last thing I needed was to start collecting gold coins, if you know what I mean.
- I then passed from one of the shops. They did have the coins, but they also made a great show to prove they were doing me a favour by selling them. I did finally get the 2 silver ones, for euro 44 each - without a box. They told me that if I was interested in the next issue, I would have to call them and ask them to hold them for me, and that with the boxes, the two coins would cost 92 euro.
The coins are 34 grams each, 925 per mil silver, 40 mm diameter. This amounts to very nearly one ounce of pure silver - more than most silver commems, but then the price is also much more than most. Contrary to the info in the eurogedenkmuenze site, witch mentions a 68.000 pc mintage limit, the certificate says the maximum issue will be 800.000 pieces. Perhaps the 800.000 figure refers to all 12 coins (including the gold ones) but again, the numbers don't add up.
So IF you want those coins, let me know and I 'll see what I can do. perhaps the bank will sell them for euro 40 each. But to tell the truth, if it wasn't for the fact that they are issued by my country, I would have very serious reservations about their price myself, and would probably not buy them.
One more thing: the coins have no date - they do have "Athens 2004" on them, but this is (I believe) not the issue date, it is the event commemorated. Unless the coins WERE minted in 2004, which would help explain the overblown costs - last time I checked, time travel didn't come cheap.
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Jetzt bin ich echt am Überlegen, ob ich mich noch weiter für diese Münzen interessieren soll