On Tuesday, May 1, 2012 1:47:34 PM UTC+1, Bart wrote:
"Tim Streater" wrote in message
...
In article om,

Some 40 years ago I was buying as it might be apples in a greengrocer's in
Naples. Change was 400 lire, and he showed me four 100 lire coins in his
hand. Turns his hand over to drop the coins in my palm, put puts his thumb
over one of the coins. Result: 300 lire in my hand.

In Holland once, instead of being handed a 5 guilder coin as part of my
change (worth about £2), I got a 5 Belgian franc coin, as a I found out
later. The Belgian coin was around the same size, but was worth just a few
pence.


An Icelanndic colleague in teh 1980s told me that Icelanders on holiday in Rissia used to change Icelandic kronor for Roubles on the black market. The russians thought that the Scaninavian kronor were worth about the same (N,S Dk were Iceland kronor were about 100x less valuable IIRC). I thought this was quite risky.

Robert