>The euro coin sets have a logical design sequence, but there are >just too many of them to be convenient
I have heard the same complaint from Americans of British coins. Since the UK has the same coin numerical values, it sounds like the same issue. http://europa.eu.int/comm/economy_finance/euro/documents/eup37eden.pdf "The question of the denominations of the coins was rapidly decided technically by the Mint Directors' Working Group on the basis of an analysis of the national practices and needs. It was necessary to find a balance between a wide variety, which could give rise to problems of recognising the coins, and a limited number of different coins, which would have made giving change more complicated. The average number of different denominations within the European Union was 7.17.4 After discussion, the mint directors proposed a series of 8 coins: 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 cents, 1 and 2 euro. The possibility of producing a 5 euro coin was raised, but rejected after it was decided to issue a banknote for the same amount. The existence of six coins in cents was intended to facilitate conversion and rounding operations." Number of national coins prior to euro: 5 Belgium 5 Luxembourg 6 Netherlands 7 Denmark 7 Greece 7 Ireland 7 Portugal 7 United Kingdom. 8 Germany 9 France 9 Italy 9 Spain The use of 1, 2 and 5 and multiples for coins was common, if not universal in Europe. Apparently the US is in need of an 18 cent coin and the eurozone needs a 1.3 euro coin: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030510/mathtrek.asp See also research about number of coins carried in the purse: http://matap.dmae.upm.es/WebpersonalBartolo/papers/Howmanycoins.pdf
