MADRID, 22 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -
The Bank of Spain Bank Customer Portal publishes some recommendations to identify counterfeit coins. These are the tips suggested by the financial institution, grouped in the 5-step rule.
The Bank of Spain explains that, although it is increasingly common to pay with alternative means to cash such as debit or credit cards, physical money continues to be the preferred method for Spaniards to make purchases, especially when it comes to small payments. . This is why you have to be careful with the coins, since some may be false.
Thus, the Bank of Spain, and specifically, Jose Manuel Tarifa, from the Currency Analysis Unit, presents the 5-step rule to check the authenticity of coins.
The first step is to make sure that the euro coins are not from a non-Eurosystem country. For this, it is convenient to know that the coins have two sides, the national side and the common side. In the latter is the number of the value of the coin, the map and the word Euro or Euro Cent.
However, both the year the coin was minted and the image that identifies the issuing country appear on the national side. In addition, on the outside of the coin these engravings will be surrounded by the 12 stars of the European flag.
This second step consists of taking the coin and rotating it, which has to result in a vertical alignment of the recorded images, which is known as 'coin rotation'.
This cheat refers to the layout of the map. And it is that, from 2007, the coins were minted with the entire map of the European continent, and not only with the countries belonging to the Eurosystem. So, in the coins that were minted as of this year, the entire map of Europe would have to be found.
The true 1 and 2 euro coins are magnetic only in the center. However, those of low denomination, that is, those of 1, 2 and 5 cents, are very magnetic. For their part, those of 10, 20 and 50 cents, those of medium denomination, are not magnetic at all.
Finally, it must be taken into account that the 1 and 2 euro coins will have the map of Europe engraved with a rough touch.
To finish, Jose Manuel Tarifa emphasizes that "the exceptional minting quality of the euro coins means that the definition of the engravings does not disappear despite great use". In addition, the member of the Currency Analysis Unit of the Bank of Spain advises against accepting coins that appear to have been manipulated or that are badly damaged.
