As Malta’s first euro coins rolled off the production lines on Friday – with images of the Maltese cross, Malta’s coat of arms and the Mnajdra Temple gracing their obverse sides – one minute and barely discernable detail of Malta’s EUR2 coin spoke volumes.

The outside edge around the circumference of the EUR2 coins, 10 million of which are being produced at the Monnaie De Paris, bears small images of the Maltese cross instead of euro stars. Under the strict European Central Bank coin design rules, euro coins have one common face while only the design of the obverse side of the coins minted by individual countries is at the individual countries’ discretion.

Wily Malta, however, found another way to leave Malta’s unique stamp on Europe’s coinage, by replacing the euro stars on the coins’ outside edge with a succession of Maltese crosses – the only country to have deviated from the norms in this respect.

The otherwise discerning ECB specifications had only stipulated that stars could be placed on the outside edge, without furnishing the exact specifications of the stars themselves.

As such, Malta seized the opportunity to place its own small yet significant hallmark on its own EUR2 euro coins, which also bear a sharp, crisp Maltese cross on their obverse side. The EUR2 coins are expected to be something of a rarity and are also expected to accrue collector value once they are issued as legal tender on 1 January.

Some 200 million individual Maltese euro coins, worth some Lm45 million and weighing in the region of 1,000 metric tons, will be shipped to Malta in September. Malta will also be importing some 80 million individual euro bank notes, representing a value of roughly EUR1 billion. As opposed to euro coins, bank notes are standardised and bear no symbols of national identity.

Before becoming legal tender on the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, starter kits for retailers containing coins in different denominations in colour coded rolls worth EUR133 (Lm56) will be available on 1 December. Public starter kits, holding EUR11.65 (Lm5) in coins, will be available from 10 December.