Have these french coins >>> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/679-grams-of-coins-o...WDVWQQrdZ1QQcmd
on ebay for the second time listed at £3.99 for a large quantity, and I would have imagined that in the past there would be quite a lot of holiday money here, and some fine examples too. Anyway, here is approx 676 grams of coins from France, where everyone's been on holiday, well over here they have anyway - and this is a largish quantity as far as hoards of coins go, yet they just won't sell!
Who on earth wouldn't buy 676 grams of any type of coins for £3.99?! Well, British ebayers who turn their little noses up at french stuff, that's who. Seriously, I cannot even throw these at people. Any advice, commiserations? I have a feeling these won't sell, although there's a lot of time left yet...

Give them to YN's. It's a great way to get them interested. I've got a small jar of those same type of coins, and that's what I've been doing, although there is one type in your picture that I don't recognize as being in my collection.

To me french coins were spending money in Paris

If any have nickel separate the nickel and offer them as nickel coins since the chinese bought all the retired nickel coins

Second I see a lot of these on ebay france which are goldplated and called rare ; I presume they sell
If everything else fails for a few cents a piece you can get a few micron gold plate and sell them by the rare piece

Otherwise the postage is a killer
I tried to sell a 100 year old french copper crucifix and ended up giving it away to an american for a small favor

There seems to be a good amount there. Can't you send them to the Banque de France and get a nice euro note for em? Those tens are worth about €1.50 and the twentys €3 alone. As far as I am aware there are sill a few years before they are written off.

Or was France one of the places that only gave two years for coins?

on coins I think most countries only gave a few months to swithc to euro
on paper they gave a bit longer but I got still belgian francs in paper and I would have to run to a statebank in brussels or antwerp and I am just to lazy for 30 dollars worth to drive thirty miles pay parking fees and maybe lose 3 hours to change it
In short those that have coins in the 12 original countries denomination are nearly sure out of their money
Those that have folding money may with more or less trouble still exchange them into euro

I don't have 667 grammes of French coins, but I probably have 200-300 grammes of them lying around. Being that I do not spend change, but save it and take it back to the bank once a month, and habits die hard even when overseas. So I have little baggies full of Ukrainian, Polish, and Dutch change, French change(from several trips), German change, Swedish, Danish, Russian, Chinese change, Japanese change etc.

I recognize a few of those as ones that I recently picked up from the bargain bin at my coin store (8 for $1). It doesn't look like a bad lot, but with shipping it would cost me $30 to buy that

Sorry to say that, but this kind of sale is a stupid one!
I see there at least four 100 francs from 1950's but I do not see the years. Some can be 20 euro/piece (1958)... or more (1958 chouette - owl). Then, the 1 centime nickels can be with rebord (= a big premium). Why do you not attach a small list of denominations, years, varieties? It will increase the chances to obtain the real market price of these coins... Now it looks like a sale of kiloware (it is a german word) and the price for that is somewhere at 6-10 euro/kg. It's your fault if this lot remain unsold, not of buyers...

I'd really hate to get a Euro for my coins, especially since that isn't even a real currency
Now maybe I shall go and count the value in Euros, that could help 'big up' my lot. What was a Franc worth in the olden days? 10p??? there must be a lot of spending money here if we were dealing in the old ways..

No, but the pieces cannot be redeemed any more. The redemption period for French pre-euro coins ended in 2005 ...

Christian

Shame I was going to bid

If my counting is correct there is over €40 woth in that pile. or *was* rather.

When I went to Paris in 1997 I made the awful mistake of trying to spend some old 10 FF pieces I had brought with me (the all-bronze looking ones) in a café. The _garçon_ looked at me like I was a piece of dirt. The next day I went to the Banque de France to exchange them for new ones.

I haven't even been back to France yet with the Euro. How very odd. All these years I knew just how many Francs a good bottle of wine cost, or a good Camembert, or what books should cost. Now I just have to think dollars, and then a lot more. How odd to pay for a baguette with euros. I need a research grant to get me back...

I loved the old 10 FF and 20 FF and 50 FF notes. And the lovely 100 FF notes with Delacroix on them. The 500 FF notes with Montesquieu were too big and too scary to carry around. I liked the big 5 FF pieces, too.

Okay, enough nostalgia.

Guess this was a problem in much of Euroland: In the originally 11 euro countries, the three-year changeover period was theoretically long enough to become familiar with how much a franc, peseta, etc. was worth in terms of euro. Practically, however, inertia is human and apparently most did not really care until shortly before the old cash ceased to be legal tender, even in countries that had somewhat "odd" conversion rates, like Austria, France or Spain. Ah well, these days it is quite simple from a American POV again: €1 = $1.50 ...


For fans of big pieces the Monnaie de Paris will issue a €5 collector coin later this year which is the very first French silver euro piece that can be obtained at face value. Ag500 only, and regional money only, but still neat: diameter 27 mm. In the picture it's the one on the left - the others cost more than face.

Christian

France was a bit famous for demonetizing coins quickly after they were withdrawn. I thought it was a bit of a novelty when I was last there back in 2000 going around Paris and snapping up the 50FF large silver crowns from anywhere from 35FF to 40FF as they had been demonetized and were selling for melt only. I also saved the 100FF silver when I could find them from circulation in banks, etc.

Dunno. France was not the first country to demonetize its pre-euro coins after the changeover. And while this concept of "our cash will always be worth face value" may give people a warm and fuzzy feeling, it is IMO not necessary if the redemption periods are long enough. With FRF paper money that circulated before the changeover, you have about four more years by the way. The next redemption deadline will be for coins in Cyprus ...

Christian

Actually for paper money, France had a liberal policy of exchanging paper money dated back as far as 1945 until recently. Most countries in Europe do not redeem paper money dated that early on. I know Germany does back to 1948, Netherlands for 32 years after the note was withdrawn. I believe Bank of England redeems notes dated back to 1694 or so, the USA redeems most notes dated back to 1861. I am not sure on Canada, but have to believe they will honour most notes dated back into the 19th century including Charter bank notes.

I sometimes work for a few days in the steel industry as an ISO 9000 quality lead auditor
They told me france sold all their junk coins to a few wholesalers who sold anything with nickel in it to china for a nice gain
If my memory is correct on coins there was a 3 months coexistence period in belgium and then curtains

I made the mistake keeping a few rare 500 belgian francs coins as a memento
I see they go 300 francs on ebay and ebay to be paid out of those 300 francs

I will stick to gold coins in the future , those I understand

Ps
one french franc was word 6 belgian francs and there are 26.9 belgian francs to todays dollar so 4.48 french francs would buy you a dollar if the french francs were still legal tender which they are not

Three years (for the currency) and two months (for the cash) IIRC ... As for the "junk", guess that most countries did that. In Germany the Cu-Ni pieces were decoined (waffled) and then sold as scrap metal. Interestingly, last time I was at my local Bundesbank branch office, somebody wanted to get rid of old 5 DM commems. The person behind him asked whether he could buy them instead. Once they are in the "claws of the eagle", so to say (ie. the Bundesbank gets them), however, you cannot buy them back.

And yes, with one exception, all coins and notes from this country (ie. 1949-) can be redeemed "forever". That does not include the Deutsches Reich, DDR, Saarland etc. pieces of course ...

Christian

What ... no Swiss change???

Somehow the way things are going, maybe soon I will be traveling to Geneve or Bern. So perhaps.

The only Swiss change I have are yellow:

This has been a long time
So again from memory
Small money never had a status of "money" in belgium and no backing nor garantuee in other words the national bank could make as much as it pleased
From 100 Belgian Francs in folding money upward there was convertibility after the money went out of usage for at least a certain period
I do not think that period is forever .
I found 900 franks in folding money and my bank told me to take it to the National Bank . Since it is old and not collector stuff it is sitting somewhere on a shelf I think

Could that be the coin in the 1950's that a mint official was making for himself?

You're right about the 50s - but it's the 2 DM coin 1951 (that was designed like a 1 DM lookalike) which cannot be redeemed. Not really a problem as their numismatic value is much higher anyway.

The "Karlsruhe Mint Scandal" pieces are technically counterfeits, but I don't think they would be recognized as such if you wanted to exchange them. Now if you brought them to a coin dealer ...

Christian

It wasn't the only scandal, there was one in Hamburg in the 1910's also.

Can you give more details? I'm curious like a cat...