Greece Started Using The Euro on January 1st 2002

On new year's day 2002, Greece, like the other 11 members of the Eurozone, started using Euro notes and Euro coins for cash transactions. Within a few months, the old coins and banknotes in Drachmas have been withdrawn. We have uncirculated sets from each of the twelve countries in stock now for immediate delivery.

The Minister for the National Economy and the Governor of the Bank of Greece chose the designs for their euro coins from a set of proposals presented by a national technical and artistic committee.The designer of the winning motifs was sculptor Georges Stamatopoulos, sponsored by the Bank of Greece. There is a separate design for each denomination

Greek euro coins feature a unique design for every one of the eight coins. They were all designed by Georgios Stamatopoulos with the minor coins depicting Greek ships, the middle ones portraying famous Greeks and the two large denominations showing images of Greek history and mythology. All designs feature the 12 stars of the EU, the year of imprint and a tiny symbol of the Bank of Greece [1]. Uniquely, the value of the coins is expressed on the national side in the Greek alphabet, as well as being on the common side in the Roman alphabet. The euro cent is known as the lepto (λεπτό; plural lepta, λεπτά) in Greek.

Greece did not enter the eurozone until 2001 and was not able to start minting coins as early as the other eleven member states, so a number of coins circulated in 2002 were not minted in Athens but in Finland (€1 and €2 – mint mark S), France (1c, 2c, 5c, 10c and 50c – mint mark F) and Spain (20c - mint mark E). The coins minted in Athens for the Euro introduction in 2002 as well as all the subsequent Greek euro coins do not carry any mint mark.