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Money in the streets

People are using worthless currency to be artistic. Photo from moneybagsfull.com.

If you see a lot of 50-øre coins on sidewalks, that’s because as of May 1, they are no longer in circulation in Norway.

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There are nearly 370 million of the little copper coins and they are now worthless, according to News In English.

The central bank in Oslo has stopped producing the coins because they are too expensive to make.The move to eliminate smaller units of currency from the money system is happening worldwide. In Canada, for example, the Royal Canadian Mint will stop producing pennies (1/100 of a dollar) later this year, because it costs 1.5 cents to make each penny – more than it’s worth, according to the National Post.

In 2010, Sweden eliminated its 50-öre coin.

Along with lighter wallets, there are other benefits to eliminating these small units of money. People are getting creative with the worthless currencies.

Some are using the coins to make jewelry, while other people are making sculptures or wall coverings with coins.

But if you are not so artistic or have a valuable stash of 50-øre coins, you can still go to the central bank in Oslo to trade them for a larger unit of currency sometime within the next decade.