It wasn’t that long ago that Tunisia starting printing, so to speak, a new 5 Dinar coin (exchange rate 1.39 Dinar: 1 Dollar). That coin featured the image of the country’s independence leader and first President Habib Bourguiba.

Recently, the nation announced a new 50 Dinar note, the largest such note in circulation and now something else new. The Tunisian Finance Ministry and mint offices and factories must be busy as the country has just rolled out a new medium of exchange. The 5 Dinar note will no longer be the largest coin as it will be trumped by the new 10 Dinar coin.

I do not know how well this coin will do. The nation already has a 10 Dinar note and there is no word that the note will be put out of circulation for the coin. Granted, there is also a 5 Dinar note but the Bourguiba coin is still going strong. But it just seems like holding Tens in a coin is not the way people like to carry cash. Better still to hold weightless notes than heavy coins. So the jury is still out as to whether the coin will catch on.

The government prefers coins to notes because they are cheaper to produce. That is the same reason the United States invested millions in producing the Dollar coin, but it never caught on. People just did not want to carry Dollar coins as much as Dollar bills.

Tunisians may prefer the note to the coin as well.