The great difference between the currencies that make up the euro has made the single currency very popular among coin collectors: the euro is now used in 19 countries and since each currency has a different “face” depending on the country of origin, this number is quite high. Even considering that since 2004 about 400 coins have been produced in each user country, there is no shortage of diversity.
The first commemorative euro family coin was made in Greece for the 2004 Olympic Games, and the most famous and special 2 euro coin was minted by Greece.
It is the “coin of the owl”. This animal is part of ancient Greek mythology and is the sacred animal of the goddess Athena, the god of wisdom, war and the arts. The coin is inspired by an ancient 4 drachma coin. The representation of the owl has been preserved even after the minor redesign of Greek coins in 2007, which affected the other side of the coin, i.e. the face value and European map.
In fact, the animal depicted is an owl, a symbol of wisdom, but the goddess Athena is also depicted, one of the most famous deities of the classical period, she symbolizes not only wisdom but also culture, knowledge and perseverance. The presence on the 2 Euro coin is a tribute to the ubiquitous Greek drachma coin of antiquity. As mentioned earlier, the obverse shows the owl of Athena, on top of which is a symbol called Anthemion, the “signature” of the Athens mint, and on the bottom is the year of the mint.
This is the value
And the most interesting from this point of view are the recently created coins with an owl: those with an asterisk S at the bottom of the owl are very popular, but this is actually not a sign of rarity, since they originated from Finland, that is Finland handled , as a Finnish country, with minting coins from Greece and Cyprus in the early years.
The real value of 1 euro coin with S is not higher than that of the face coin, and the most interesting thing is the coin of 2013, the year when the number of coins produced in Greece was much less. This is why the 2013 coin containing an owl is worth 15 euros in uncirculated condition.
Over the years, a coin bearing the symbol of the owl has been highly prized by numismatists on the web. On the Internet, very hot rumors have been circulating for years about the rarity of this piece, even if some examples have reached us Italians, since Greece is not far away and very popular, especially during the holidays.
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