What the heck is an Age Coin?

Belgium is a wonderful and pragmatic country where rules are bended and twisted in order to make decisions fade away so the daily life can continue as it always have. My Belgian friends totally agree with this and they will time after time point out to me how it works; small things, tax - yes anywhere.

It is said that this tradition comes from the Belgian history; the soil of Belgium has in all history been an European battlefield; which ensures that every little village have a story to tell but it also gives every individual a history of defying the rulers, because the rulers have been coming and going here for centuries. Finding a way to cheat or defying conquers has always been the game.

The way I meet an Age Coin is a version of this. An Age Coin is a coin that you in Belgian bars have to put in the cigarette machine to tell that you are over a certain age and therefore are allowed to buy cigarettes.

The idea is that you have to show your ID in the bar to get a coin that can make the cigarette machine work but what happen is that there is a cup on the bar desk full of coins so everybody can just pick it up and use the machine.

I believe that the concept is copied from the Netherlands where they introduced the concept of the "age coin," a some years ago.