Collectors Of French Coins?

Thats alot of good collection chrisild.

Hi Sinbad,

Actually just by coincidence I got a copy of the the 2007 edition of "Le Franc" today. A friend, whom I met over the internet & who lives in Paris mailed it as a gift. It seems quite authoritative although prices for 5Francs (1810-1874) in the ms62-65 range are higher than I can buy specimens for over here when I find them.

Le Franc deals with largely circulation issues from 1792 on although it includes the 6 livres of the Convention 1792-94 (of which I have a 1793 in unc) for some strange reason.

However these things are a bit hard to find here and I've been missing a lots of bids lately (although I did get one in January). I plan to go to Paris & Berlin for their semi-annual coin shows in October & see if I can't find something.

Yours,
Gallienus

I have a French coin as my Avatar, well...French Indo China that is; does that count as a French coin? If it does it is the only one I have (except for its' twin), but only because of lack of opportunity and not desire.

I don't know what it is about them, but my favorite group of coins from any country are the aluminum French coins from WWII era up through the 50's. I love the large 5 and 2 franc coins. I think because they are so large, yet so surprisingly light weight. I would say that overall France, by far, has the most attractive designs on coins.

I collect portrait coins from the renaissance to Louis XV and also the French Feudal states (Dombes, Navarre, Lorraine, etc). The best deals for French coins are in the US, UK and Germany, where they don't care about them; but I find the best French coins are really only available from dealers in France. Many of the French dealers are very happy to sell to the US and will take payment by paypal in euros if you ask in French.

Hi Gallienus,

Sure, I will be happy to upload an example or two of my French Feudal coins! Unfortunately it will have to wait until I regain access to my home office and my regular laptop. Sounds like a strange excuse - but I broke my ankle two days ago and I'm not able to navigate the stairs yet! I haven't asked my wife to pull it out for me either, since the scanner, printer, etc are all hooked up to it. Argh.

My avatar is a Trajan denarius. It has Mars on the reverse. I won it on Vauctions last year from Freeman & Sear. I probably paid too much but it I haven't regretted it for one minute.
I really like the large cistophorus portraits of Trajan, Hadrian, etc. and hope to own a few someday soon. Also the portraits on the large bronze sesterii are very cool, but the nice ones get very pricey.

Hi t360

Thanks for your comments. Nice coins never go cheaply so if you're happy w/ your Trajan denarius that's quite good. I am still kicking myself over losing a really nice cistophorus of Augustus due to a bidding mistake: it went cheaply too!!!

Yes I should've recognized it as Trajan.

The Nero sestersius came from Superior's Jachua Hiefowitz auction in 1989. He was a classical pianist ca 1912. At the time it was the most expensive coin that I ever bought. Bascially I was (& am) a poor engineer who drives used cars but I put my dollars saved towards a few nice foreign (non-USA) coins.

I didn't realize Henry III had Polish connections. When I bought that 1585 franc from Stack's it was pretty cheap. It was a nice one but these aren't [or weren't] hot items: so few bid against me. My 2 ecus from the 1790's are much more prized as well as my run of 5 francs.

Polish is impossible these days - I haven't come close to buying anything in years. The last time I tried to buy a much needed 1577 seige thaler from Heritage, it ended up going for $17,000 !!! I have the other seige thaler: the 1629, bought from Germany.