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Anyone like French coins?


Ætheling

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Okay i'd have to admit it i'm really beginning to take to these French coins like you wouldn't believe. Not so much the modern ones but all things Louis XVI.

 

I go wandering around coin fairs spending more time looking through junk boxes and world coin pages for lower grade French Royal coinage than i do actually going around for what i'm supposed to be buying. Usually because i either daren't look at the price tag of the stuff i need for my sets, or because i simply cannot find what i need.

 

So i browse around and i keep seeing all these different Louis coins popping up somewhat sporadically in various locations. Not in much quantity it has to be said, but large copper coins (i presume they are Sols), smaller Liards, and the only silver coins i've come across yet are the 1/10 ecus. I would very much like to see some of the larger silver stuff, not so much because i prefer it (in honest truth i like smaller silver coins, the 1/10th ecus are perfect for me), but i'd like to see the other coins to get the feeling of their relative sizes, types of milling etc.

 

Really has caught my attention. I should get myself some French coin reference material too. Now that i've found out that i can exchange £sterling for euros at the Post Office without commision, and i've got a dealer in Belgium. It looks like i might finally be able to buy some decent French coinage that i've been longing for, for a while.

 

 

I should really thank GD for pointing me in the direction of these wonderful French issues! ;) You could say he showed me the door to a slightly darker path in the darkside to add that bit of diversity my collection has been crying out for.

 

 

Amusingly though i don't actually collect British coins anymore. I've got two medieval English sets on the go but nothing after 1603, so nothing that could be defined as 'British'. British is not the way forward guys... recant whilst you still can :ninja:

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Oui Monseiur!

Je collect francais moneta (*cough cough*)

Pardon moi monseuir, je parle petite francais.

 

Ok, time to cut the joke part out. :ninja:

 

But yes, I do collect a bit of modern French coins, but not anything that's older than 1800s... I guess I am trying to pursue the Russian coins first... ;)

 

 

Me and the 18th century... dunno why but i just love things from that period. The fashions, the wigs, even some of the music... ah Vivaldi. The days of highwaymen and mail coaches, J J Rousseau, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. The tragedy of the French Revolution, the somewhat better American Revolution. It's a really happening period. The old copperplate handwriting, the old books of the period with their joined 'ct's and medial S's.

 

Most of all i love the way that the coins are kind of in between hammered and modern. They look old and they don't stack well. Higher reliefs. From a time when the aristocracy mattered. As someone who is interested in elitist history the 18th century is really the period when my political and historical interest reaches it's final chapter in the Terror of 1793. I was never that bothered about democratic history, or democracy for that matter that tends to dominate Victorian thought... boring, who cares what the ordinary folk think? Who cares how many times it takes a bill to pass through the House of Commons? Give me a king, give me a set of nobles and give me 95% of the population in peasantry and it's totally my idea of how a country should run. :lol:

 

Naturally i'm Gentry. Of course... ;)

 

 

More seriously though it a very good period to study. Although avoid British history of this period it's dull, infact British history turns dull after 1660, hence why at that point i switch to French.

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I like French medals with nekad ladies on them ;)

 

Well, post some pics already :ninja:

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British is not the way forward guys... recant whilst you still can :ninja:

 

 

Heresy. Grab your torch and pitchforks, boys. We've got a heathen amongst us. ;-)

 

I have a lot of the more modern French silver and gold, mid 19th century onward. The older stuff isn't bad, but it's a little crude for my taste. For me, coins really became coins when the milling began to become refined. The early and ancient stuff does little for me, I'm afraid.

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Heresy.  Grab your torch and pitchforks, boys.  We've got a heathen amongst us.  ;-)

 

I have a lot of the more modern French silver and gold, mid 19th century onward.  The older stuff isn't bad, but it's a little crude for my taste.  For me, coins really became coins when the milling began to become refined.  The early and ancient stuff does little for me, I'm afraid.

 

 

When does modern start in french coins ?

I got one Louis XVI picked up for a song and dance in germany

 

 

I tried to post the pic but at 96 dpi it still says it is too big :ninja:

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That gold Louis is very nice. I guess by modern I mean milled coinage. The designs I like best start in the mid 19th century, with the advent of the LMU. The gold angels are particular faves of mine. I have more of them than any other gold coin, and they're relatively cheap.

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Milled coinage in France, with an edge design, began in 1646. From that date on there was no hammered coinage in France - it was banned outright.

 

Most collectors of French coinage consider the modern period to have begun with the revolution - 1789.

 

 

edit for correction - milled coinage actually began in France in 1640 - hammered coinage was banned in 1645. Gotta learn not trust my memory :ninja:

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Milled coinage in France, with an edge design, began in 1646. From that date on there was no hammered coinage in France - it was banned outright.

 

Most collectors of French coinage consider the modern period to have begun with the revolution - 1789.

 

 

I'd concurr with 1789. It seems to lose the royal feel after 1789. I saw one Louis coin from 1793 that had an angel of something on the back, well it certainly wasn't a shield! I must admit i never cared for the French angel coinage at all, looks daft stood there with wings and a book. Gets some crowned shields! :ninja:

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Oops just read 28plain's reply just now.

 

The very reason i avoid coinage of the 1800s is because they seem to make that final transition to something resembling modern coinage. If you look at British coinage from 1816 onwards it looked just like something from 1946. Stack a whole pile of George III shillings and George V shillings on top of each other and from the sides you couldn't tell the difference.

 

Coins from the 1800s look too round, too perfect, too modern?

 

I generally really dig the coins with the slightly imperfect roundness, with diagonal or chevron milling and the date starting 17.

 

US coinage seems (to me at any rate) to look better upto the early 1830s. After the 1830s it seems to go downhill. Then when the seated stuff arrives i skip straight past that, looks too Swiss to me and i'm not a big fan of Swiss coinage.

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I'd concurr with 1789. It seems to lose the royal feel after 1789. I saw one Louis coin from 1793 that had an angel of something on the back, well it certainly wasn't a shield! I must admit i never cared for the French angel coinage at all, looks daft stood there with wings and a book. Gets some crowned shields! :ninja:

 

The genius coin won a contest when Augustin Dupré entered it

It is a break with the kings and shield period

The angel is not an angel but a genius described by the lexicon as a superior being

He is writing the french constiution with a stylus with the all seeing eye or someting like that at the end of the stylus

The rooster is symbol for valience

The packed twigs on the left are the roman symbol for power

 

So I like the angel coin with the story it saved its designer from the guillotine

The day he was going to be beheaded he had an angel coin in his pocket and got away from the guillotine

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I collect Gold French 20 fr, coins, I beleive I have the whole type set for the 19th century.I wish I had one of those Louie D's  :ninja:

 

Here you can have a look at the french website post revolution coins

http://www.cpror.com/cprorGB/index5.html

 

 

Those Louies d'or coins normally go high prices

I have been looking for one with the rounded shields for a year now

 

Also very expensive are the 50 francs gold angels and the 100 francs Bazor coins

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I collect Gold French 20 fr, coins, I beleive I have the whole type set for the 19th century.I wish I had one of those Louie D's  :ninja:

 

I am not sure what to understand by typeset eg

Do you consider the 1848-1849 angel with real writing on the tablet as part of a type set ? Attached pic is from CPROR

All the other angels have a blank tablet

gallery_97_64_11047.jpg

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