In today’s Egypt there is very little use of coins in circulation. A collector friend who went there a few years ago, told me that they did have limited success in finding Egyptian coins in circulation, this success was quite a surprise to the guides with their group.

Information once available on the site of the South African Mint, detailed that they supplied the (holed) Copper-Nickel blanks Egypt’s 25 Piastres coins of AH1413. The actual coins presumably having being made in Egypt by the mint in Cairo. It seems that the majority of the few coins in circulation in Egypt are those of the AH1404 and AH1413 series. So consider yourself lucky if someone comes back from a holiday in Egypt with some coins for you - I did !

One odd thing I found on the internet about the current coins of Egypt, around January 2001 was that a surprising number of tourist information sites about Egypt stated that 50 Piastre coins were in use. I checked this with someone in Egypt and they were quite certain that there are no 50 Piastre coins anywhere in Egypt for circulation. The mistake on the tourist information pages probably all started in the same place though - it would almost seem that many of these site just copy their information from other sites with the same purpose. However by a hint from the WBCC following the World Money Fair held in Basel in January 2002 led me to find that this situation is about to change. I soon found press information on the internet about this. One report from towards the end of August 2001 detailed that the new coin will be made out of nickel, with a bronze centre, and will feature the mask of Tutankhamun. Other bits of info give me the impression that this coins will be released at face value and perhaps see enough circulation to be classed as a normal circulation coin.

    The coin information above was as per the previous update of this page in March 2002. Since that time a bi-metallic 50 Piastres still remains to be seen and presumably still does not exist as an issued coin. But now, at last, there is one new coin for circulation in Egypt.

    Earlier in 2005 I first heard of and saw for sale, 5 Piastre coins of the new type shown above. The coin is a reduced size version, of the 5 Piastres 1992/1413 (KM-731), having a diameter of just 18mm as compared to the diameter of KM-731 which is  21mm. The new 5 Piastre type also has a new date 2004/1425 and the date numerals along with the rest of the legends are written a little differently than on the type KM-731. These differences are such that I would expect this new coin to be classed as a new type, not just a new sub-type of KM-731. Maybe this will be the first of several Epyptian coins to be reduced in size, perhaps this is leading up to a new 50 Piastres coin - how knows ?
 

See more at... Egypt - Page 2 of 2

Update adding details of possible new bi-metallic 50 Piastres for Egypt added March 2002.
Update with details and image of the smaller 5 Piastres dated 2004/1425 added at May 2005.