Holy Coin - CC 003

CC 003

Pope John XXIII Coin

Origin: Vatican City

Unit: 100 lire

Details: excellent, no longer minted

I've got another coin for you guys today, and this one comes all away from Vatican City. Despite being the smallest country in the world, they do have their own currency. In present times they have switched over to using the Euro, but before they were using the lira (the unit of Italian currency, pre-Euro). This particular piece is a 100 lire piece from 1960 and in excellent condition. I received it as a present from my dad a few years back. Because of the limited minting, due to the country being so small, these coins are highly collectible and make a great addition to the museum.

The coin features a relief of Pope John XXIII, who served as pope from 1958 to 1963, and you can see the 'tails' side in the photo above. The approximation value of the coin, if you were to actually buy something with it is about 5 Euro cents. An interesting side note about the coins of the Vatican is that they apparently have the worlds only ATM that is in Latin, and while they have functional Euro coins, they do not mint any Vatican Euro bills.

If you want to check out other similar era Vatican coins, click here.

Or, if you want to learn more about their Euros, click here.