the new euro notes will be the same across all the countries involved. despite their blandness they could have been a lot worse — imagine if notes were all the same size, all green and had no interesting distinguishing features… ;-) the coins however are not all the same. each country will have its own designs on the backs of its coins though you’ll be able to take coins from one country to another. i wonder how long it’ll take to get them all muddled up? what’s odd is that some countries didn’t bother thinking up a different design for each coin. whilst the austrians had no trouble covering their coins in different pictures covering everything from mozart to alpine primroses, the irish went for harps with everything and luxembourg just stuck the king on. i have a feeling that when us britons get to join in the euro fun we’ll get stuck with the queen’s head too rather than anything interesting.