Today the currency of Greece is the euro. Since it joined the European Union, it has shared currency with many other countries in the region, although unfortunately it has not been lucky. Greece has been in crisis since 2008 and although much is said about its recovery, the road is being longer and more arduous than the Greeks can bear.
There was a time, not so distant, in which each country in Europe had its own currency, pesetas, drachmas, liras, marks and so on. Those coins had old stories but today they have been somewhat forgotten in favor of a modern euro that is currently going through the most difficult time since its creation. Do you remember the drachma, the noble Greek coin?
In the case of Greece, before joining the European Community, the national currency was the drachma, a currency that actually was used several times throughout its long history. But modern drachma appears in the middle of the XNUMXth century, after the independence of Greece. There was banknotes, copper coins, silver drachmas and gold drachmas. Around 1868 he joined the Latin Monetary Union and its value was fixed with respect to the French franc.
So, there were some changes: after the First World War the Monetary Union fell apart. Then came the second drachma, between 1944 and 1954, currency that in the end was greatly affected by inflation, and later the third version of the drachma coin between '64 and 2002. The coin always went through different devaluations until finally on January 1, 20002 the millennial drachma was supplanted by the euro.
Do you have an old drachma stored somewhere? Do you collect old bills? Are you wondering if Greece will ever return to the drachma?