Did you return home from your trip to Italy with some Euro spare change?
Then, you’ll better check it: your 1-cent Euro coins could be worth 2,500 Euros each.
Due to a mistake by the Zecca di Stato, the Italian institute producing coins, passports and postage stamps for Italy, hundreds of “wrong” 0.01 Euro coins have been circulating. The coins mistakenly show Turin’s Mole Antonelliana on their backs instead of Castel del Monte, a 13th-century castle in Apulia. La Mole should only be on 2-cent coins.
Although production was stopped right after the mistake was discovered, there are still several wrong 1-cent coins around. It was reported that a collector has paid 6,600 Euros just for one.
Italian company Bolaffi has six such coins and has put them at auction for the starting price of 2,500 Euros.
Italian Euro coins, introduced in 2002, have a common theme, which is to depict representative works of Italian art and architecture, such as Rome's Colosseum or Botticelli's Birth of Venus painting. Italians were able to choose the design of each coin through a television broadcast where different options were presented by calling a certain telephone number, with the exception of the 1 euro coin, whose subject, the Vitruvian Man of Leonardo da Vinci, had already been decided. All designs feature the 12 stars of the European Union, the year of imprint, the letters "RI" for Repubblica Italiana (Italian Republic) and the letter R for Rome.
So now, go check: your 1-cent coin could pay your next trip to Italy!
