Hello I have a 50 french franc 1975 coin (hercule dupre) i noticed recently that when i turn it around the other side of the coin is upside down ,

so basically if i read the 50 franc correctly and turn the coin around the 3 statues and the "liberte egalite fraternite" inscription will be upside down ,

is that something common with that coin ?

thanks for any input

O

That is normal `coin rotation' and is standard for most coinages. If both sides were the same way up it is called `medal rotation' (as in the way medals are usually struck). The UK for example typically uses medal rotation for its coinage, but not so France.

Ian

Well, calling it "coin" rotation or alignment makes sense in those countries where coins are still struck that way. For me it primarily sounds odd. And yes, France made the franc coins (until 2001) with that alignment. But the country's euro coins (as from 1999) use parallel alignment.

Christian

You will have to pardon the lack of precision in relation to French (and other) euro coins Christian. My time line on coins stopped well before their introduction.

Ian

`allons enfants de la patrie
ne battent pas monnaies
en medaille.....etc'

Hehe ... in German we say Kehrprägung for parallel alignment (what the Americans call "medal" alignment) and Wendeprägung for inverse alignment (what would be "coin" alignment in the US). But other terms popular among numismatists were deutsche Prägung and französische Prägung respectively. The latter does not make sense any more.

Would be interesting to know, by the way, if the non-parallel alignment is still "standard" nowadays. I know about several countries, from Canada to Switzerland, where in the 20c the alignment changed from "coin" to "medal", but how many went the other way round?

Christian