American Euros

One of my family's traditions is receiving chocolate coins in our stockings on Christmas morning. They're wrapped in shiny foil of an appropriate color (usually gold or silver), and made of a lousy quality milk chocolate.

This year we got chocolate Euro coins; €2, €1, and €0.50. Now, real Euro coins all have the same design on the front, but different designs for each country on the back. (wikipedia) The chocolate makers decided to put just one image on the back of each of their three chocolate coins. Since they were selling in North America, they picked national designs from the real euros which happened to (vaguely) resemble US symbols: Austria's €1 portrait of Mozart (looks like George Washington), Germany's €2 or €1 eagle (looks like the eagle on the Seal of the US President), and Italy's €2 portrait of Dante Alighieri by Raphael (looks a bit like a native American wearing a feather headdress).

I suppose if they ever make Canadian edition chocolate Euros, one of them will feature Finland's €1 coin.