Since leaving my home country of The Netherlands for the United States in 1996, I have always kept a Dutch ten-cent coin in my wallet. It is fondly dubbed a dubbeltje and is no longer a valid currency since the introduction of the Euro in 2002. Yet, for me, this coin brings luck, and to this day seems to open doors. For example, I was once at a job interview which was going south: in a last ditch effort I pulled out my coin, grabbed a CD from the table, and put the coin in the middle hole, where it fit exactly. The size of the hole was determined in The Netherlands, by the inventors of the CD at Philips in Eindhoven. And so my dubbeltje continues to live on in the world, as billions of holes in CD disks. I went on to explain that money has literally become air — perhaps the largest contribution Dutch design has made to our planet. And I got the job.
Adam Eeuwens
29 Notes