http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp...;story_id=32983

Erik???

I'd guess that the more they try to collect them the harder it will get. People always want to keep something that they think someone else wants.

Frankly, I'm not too suprised. They've made it very hard to redeem the old money. At least for people overseas, anyways.

Frankly I think that many people just don't care. In most euro countries the redemption quota for notes is much, much higher than that for coins. In Ireland, for example, it's 95% (notes) vs 66% (coins). Here in Germany it is roughly the same, I think. A note is usually worth more, so people are more likely to take it to the bank. But a coin ...

Christian

I still have £90 in pre-decimal British coins that were never exchanged. Lately with copper prices on the rise, the halfpennies and pennies are almost scrappable.

Those people outside Euroland who want/need to have their pre-euro cash exchanged could (and in most cases still can) do so. The euro cash has been around for almost five years; quite a lot of time IMO to get rid of the cash that was valid before. And as far as paper money is concerned, even in the countries with the shortest redemption periods for notes - Finland, France, Greece, Italy - you have until 2012 to exchange them.

Now coins are a different story. If you have a lot, they may be too heavy for mailing them to a central bank or to a service that exchanges them. Also, the pre-euro coins from some countries (Belgium, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal) cannot be redeemed any more. Then again, I hardly ever shlep lots of coins back home that I cannot use here. Except for pieces for my collection, that is.

Christian

One more thing:

What I find a little strange about the redemption policy in the Netherlands is that retailers could not "collect" NLG cash by allowing customers to pay with it once the euro was the sole legal tender. The most famous case in that regard was the Free Record Store chain ...

From what I have read about such campaigns in Germany - some stores did and maybe still do that - , it is convenient for customers, the store may make some extra money (from customers who otherwise would not have bought there), and the central bank would have to deal with a smaller number of exchange transactions. Well, if in NL you can now (as from 1 Oct) take the old cash to the post office, that is sure easier than going to a DNB branch office.

Christian

What was curious about that was that it happened in Netherlands and not in say France, where I would expect something like that to happen. Totally un-Dutchlike

I won't even ask why you think that way about France. But yes, for the Netherlands that was a little surprising. Oh well, for the last three months (as far as the coins are concerned) they found a more practical way of exchanging gulden coins. Sounds good to me: You would not drive to the DNB for just a few coins, or mail them, but a post office is usually within reach ...

Christian

My reference was specifically to the Netherlands. I still deal with D-marks often enoungh that it's not really a big issue at all.

The Dutch Central Bank will let you send stuff in once. But try it again, and they'll be wondering if you may be "buying" the coins. Well, definately when dealing with world coin poundage, I like to pull out what foreign currency is worthwhile (usually >50c) to put aside. But none of the banks around here want to have anything to do even with (1990s) Dutch banknotes.

Right, in the Netherlands the central bank will not accept NLG cash that was, quote, "obtained after 27 January 2002 in the course of professional or business activities, nor accepted as payment for goods and/or services delivered." As I wrote before, I think that is a little strange indeed.

If somebody gives you such notes or coins as a gift, I don't see why the DNB would not accept that. But maybe they assume "commercial activity" as soon as you send them pre-euro cash more than once or twice ...

The strange thing is, here in Germany you can bring or mail pre-euro cash to a commercial service called GFC, and that includes Dutch gulden notes and coins. http://www.gfc.de/ They charge a hefty fee (about 25 percent of the face value), but if the alternative was having to deal with various central banks, that is OK. Now how do they get rid of their NLG cash?

Christian

That's very interesting. 25% IMO is quite reasonable. It is weird as you suggest how how they dispose of it?!

I wonder how many T_3 has buried around his neighbourhood waiting for the day they are worth a premium?

The Dutch government set up a website with more information about the exchange campaign:

http://www.eurosvoorguldens.nl/
(in Dutch)

Neat: The link "Geschiedenis" (History) provides some brief info about the old coin names and nicknames such as stuiver and dubbeltje.

Christian

Not much

At least not billions....





lemme see, 3.5 billion guilders = 0.5 billion EUR????????

what ever happened to €1 = ƒ 2.20371 ????

Now I understand why prices have gone up so much....


I think most peeps are just to lazy to hand in the little bit of pre euro coinage they have

Not "3.5 billion guilders" but "3.5 billion guilder coins", ie. anything from the stuiver to the silver commems. Here is another text (from the KNM website) that makes the difference obvious: "In totaal zwerven er sinds de invoering van de euro in 2002 nog ruim 3,5 miljard guldenmunten rond. Vooral veel dubbeltjes zijn weg: bijna anderhalf miljard stuks."

So even a dubbeltje (10 ct) is a "guldenmunt" in that sense.

Christian

Ok, I still have about 50 guilders in coins and notes from my trip in 1996, what can I do? I looked at the forms and they want all this bank information etc. which does me no good. I live in rural Indiana, if my bank suddenly got a transfer of euros from the Dutch central bank, they would probably freak out. Why isn't there some way to just send in my stuff and they send me back some nice new euros? Or better yet, some nice new dollars?

Well, maybe there is a commercial service like GFC (see above) in your country? Whether US banks handle IBAN/BIC based money transfers I don't know, but I don't think that the Dutch central bank (DNB) mails any cash back - not euro cash, and certainly not any foreign currency.

Unless Erik has a better suggestion of how to deal with this, you could also mail your NLG cash to a friend of mine in the US who comes here later this year. I am in DE, near NL, and until the end of this year NLG cash can also be submitted at Dutch post offices. Once I have the equivalent on my bank account, I would send you the DNB receipt and paypal you the amount.

Another option, in case you don't have many guilder/cent coins left but mostly notes, is to wait. You have 25 more years to change the NLG notes of the last pre-euro series into EUR cash.

Christian

I think IBAN transfers are do-able, but quite expensive. I think my bank charges $25+5% or something like that. Combined with $15+ for registered post, all of a sudden it was not appealing to redeem the two 50G coins I had.