Due to the lower value the risk is also much lower, apart from vending machines who actually checks coins for fake and refuse them ? For a merchant the cost of

Due to the lower value the risk is also much lower, apart from vending machines who actually checks coins for fake and refuse them ? For a merchant the cost of annoying a potentially unaware customer is more than the value of the coin that he will probably simply give back to another customer as change. Try using an actual real 500€ bill anywhere else than Germany.