The Schilling also used to be the official currency in Austria until the introduction of the Euro on 1st of january 2002. The fixed trading value of 1 Euro is exactly 13,7603 ATS (AusTrian Schilling).

The austrian equivalent to the cent were named Groschen, hundred of them being one Schilling. In the nineties there only existed 10 and 50 Groschen coins, but my mom still has some 1, 2 and 5 ones.

The Schilling itself split in 1, 5, 10 and 20 Schilling coins, thought the 20ies where rather rare and collected rather than spent, while I personally believe that the latter triggered the first.
The Schilling banknotes where beautiful pieces of artwork, existing as 20ies, 50ies, 100s, 500s, 1000s and 5000s. I still have 3 hundred Schilling banknotes. They are dark green and gray and have Eugen Böhm von Bawerk on the one side and the science academy on the other.

The Euro may be an identity-founding currency for the united Europe, but there is an ever-increasing nostalgia for our old money. I even hear people of my age often say things like "Back then in the old days...", whining about the time when you could still buy a glass of beer for 36 little bronze-colored coins. There are more or less two reasons for this:
On the one hand side, people in whole Europe still lack the right feeling for the worth of the money. In my hometown many people still calculate every price back in Schilling when they go shopping.
On the other hand side, the prices actually increased quite a bit. While that might not be true for supermarkets and large stores, many things got much more expensive where the people in charge thought that customers wouldn't realize, such as parking fees or coke vending machines.

Back then, everything was so much better (sigh!).

Schil"ling (?), n. [G. See Shilling.]

Any one of several small German and Dutch coins, worth from about one and a half cents to about five cents.

 

© Webster 1913.

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