The Legal Tender Blender

The introduction of the euro as the common currency of Europe rendered piles and piles of old currency across the continent obsolete. So what to do with the hundreds of thousands of tons of no longer circulating coins? Turns out they are mostly being sold to China, where they are melted down and recycled.

The Asian giant, with booming construction and automobile sectors, is scouring the globe for every piece of scrap metal it can lay its hands on -- and France is one country that has a ready supply of much-sought-after nickel-containing coins.

"The stainless steel producers can just put them (the coins) into their furnaces as nickel feed," said a trader in China, who added the coins are often tendered by French suppliers. "The shipments are usually packed 500 to 1,000 tonnes per lot," another Chinese trader said.

China's stainless steel demand is predicted to rise to four million tonnes next year from 3.4 million in 2003, analysts said. Stainless steel, of which nickel is a key component, is a versatile metal used in construction. It also finds its way into cars, appliances and kitchenware.

The French 50-centime coin, almost 100% nickel, is especially popular. Less demand exists for copper coins, as they are less pure, the process used to separate out the other metals is expensive, and cheaper and easier sources of scrap copper are relatively abundant. Germany, Europe's largest user of coins, had sold off most of its obsolete coins by this past summer, 18 months after the euro's launch in January 2002. The European Copper Institute estimates around 260,000 tons of old European coins would be recycled from 2002-2005.

Since this melt-and-reuse process has been going on for about as long as coins have been used, I wonder if anybody has ever estimated what percentage of the average refrigerator is made up of ancient coins?