Money, money money

We're off to Denmark* on our holidays, so I dug out the Danish coins in our random coins jar.

The small Scottish boy had a look through some of the others - I have lira, Deutschmark, Belgian Franc, Guilder and even some Czechoslovak and Soviet coins (bonus points for having not only currencies which no longer exist, but ones from countries which no longer exist). Also, for some unknown reason, I have about 10Fr in 10 and 20 centime coins.

Anyway, conferred with the Nationalbanken website to see if the Danish coins were still OK. They all are, except the old style 25øre and 5øre but they had been withdrawn in 1991 when I got them.

I don't have any notes, which is good, because they've been replaced twice since I lived there. The new ones have bridges (real ones, not the Euro fake ones) on one side and Viking things on the other.

I was impressed though that the last series (which I'd not really looked at - they were just coming out when I left in 1999) was gender balanced - given the debate about having just one woman (aside from the Queen) on bank notes generates here. There were five notes, so the 1000kr had Anna and Michael Ancher. Karen Blixen, Carl Nielsen, Johanne Luise Heiberg (who was played by Sidse Babett Knudsen in 1864) and Niels Bohr were on the others.

The ones before, the ones I know from living there, are the 1972 series. All but one of those have women on. Prior to that was a portrait series of all men. I do wonder if any other nation has had as many physicists on it's notes - Bohr, Ørsted and Rømer have all featured down the years.

*Yes, I know, Abba are Swedish. Three years of Scandinavian Studies at University here! Our plans also include a quick visit to Sweden one evening for dinner. I've been there just once, for a few hours one Easter Sunday in the 90s. I had no Swedish money with me, but as nothing was open, it didn't matter.