What prefix are your Euros?

[MrsGuyOfGisbourne]

Interesting article today in the Times (read paper copy, I think the online article is behind a paywall). I didn't realise that Euro countries all print notes, but prefix them differently, and some economists are saying that the split up into domestic currencies would be facilitated by simply denoting notes with each prefix as the new currency - eg Euro notes issued by the Greek government have the prefix 'y' so those would become drachmae overnight, and circulate at a different value to those prefixed with eg Dutch or German letters etc
Quick look at the single 20 euro note left over form my holiday - whew, it is a German one...

I think this would not be so easy to implement.

They might be able to declare that all euros within the Greek border are now devalued, and have stringent checks on money being taken out of the country at all borders, perhaps rubber stamp them with a "drachma stamp" or something.

But imagine you are a German or French person or whatever and happen to have Greek issued notes in your wallet, at home in Germany or France. You didn't go on holiday to Greece, but someone else did and you happened to receive the notes as change. I can't imagine you would be very impressed or inclined to vote for Merkel to be told it was now worthless! It has the potential to cause a lot of civil unrest in the rest of the eurozone.

If you look at a handful of Euro coins, they've also got different national symbols on one side. Once mixed, there's no practical way to separate them all again. One little prefix is not enough to distinguish.

scare mongering
the Grexit is a good story and nothing more.
It won't happen.
Lots of reasons.
Read the Economist.

I've just checked my purse.

I have eight euro notes of various denominations, two of which came direct from the cash machine yesterday, a Greek bank, in a Greek city.

None of them have a y-prefix, not even the ones that came from the bank, that you might expect to have been Greek-issued. They have a P-prefix. Anyone know where they are supposed to have been issued? (just out of curiosity)

just wiki'd it - P is Netherlands