Last 9 countries phase out old cash Thursday

Well ahead of their official expiration dates, the national currencies of Europe have vanished into history - traded in for euros, lost in couches, taken home by foreigners, hoarded as mementos.

Thursday is the last day that any of the old cash will still buy something as the remaining nine of the 12 countries using the euro phase out their national currencies. But it has been days or weeks since many cashiers have seen Deutsche marks, lire or Austrian schillings clink into their tills.

The percentage of euro-only transactions is "almost 100 percent," a spokeswoman for the European Central Bank said.

While officials have expressed relief over the smooth transition to the new currency shared by 12 countries, some Europeans are preparing farewells for their national currencies and the kings, poets, artists and thinkers who adorned the bills and coins. In Italy, the euroskeptic government, for instance, has asked people to toss their lire into the Trevi Fountain in Rome as a ceremonial gesture.

But most Europeans seem to have adapted to the changeover.

Karin Mueller, for one, said that not a single mark was used Tuesday by the hundreds of morning rush-hour commuters buying newspapers at her shop next to the train station in Frankfurt.

But Mueller added, "One still thinks a bit in marks."

Rocco Derito, a barman at the Caffe Doria in Rome, said he was getting only about one customer a day who paid in lire.

Horst Bergauer, a Vienna supermarket employee, said the few still paying with schillings were mostly older people.

"But the amounts dwindle," Bergauer said.

There have been a few quibbles with the euro. Most people seem to have a story about a hairdresser or café that raised prices during the transition by rounding the new price up to the next euro. But the European Central Bank says rounding down because of competition will cancel out such increases.

Bankers and government officials do not expect a last-minute rush to banks. The Netherlands, which phased out the guilder on Jan. 28, reported only a slight increase in exchanges in the last 48 hours.

Ireland said good-bye to its punt Feb. 9, and France bid adieu to the franc Feb. 17.

The countries where the old currency expires Thursday are Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Portugal.

In Italy, the government plans to donate lire tossed into the Trevi Fountain to the Red Cross and to finance a "Monument to the Lira," whose site, design, cost and date of completion are unclear.

In Germany, Finance Minister Hans Eichel was to hand over to a museum the dies and printing plates used to make marks.

Though the old cash will not be legal tender for purchases, it can still be exchanged at branches of countries' national banks.

Terms for trading in old money vary from country to country. In Belgium, for instance, coins can be turned in until 2004 and bills indefinitely. After Thursday, however, private banks can either refuse to accept the old money or charge a fee for exchanging it.

While the switch may nearly be over for the public, armored car companies and banks have continued transporting the last of the old money to central banks, where it is destroyed.

Still, tons of money - no one is estimating how much - will never return because it is lost, being kept for nostalgia's sake or gathering lint in pockets of travelers who have returned home.

Of 49 billion German coins put into circulation, 20 billion are not expected to be turned in, said Peter Walter, chief cashier at Germany's central bank.

"A huge amount of that will be one-penny, two-penny coins, so the value of those 20 billion coins will be very low," Walter said.

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