Collectors Of French Coins?

Hi Gallienus,
Henry III gave up the Polish throne to become the King of France, but he retained the title on his Frnech coins - note the POL REX on your 1585 franc. For that reason, Polish collectors look for examples with clear legends, and don't care so much about the portrait. IMHO, the run up in prices of Polish coins is due to both the propering economy in Poland since the end of the Cold War (more disposable income for coins) as well as the increased demand from recent immigrants to America who are doing well in this country.

Hi Gallienus,
Here's one of my favorite French Feudal States coins. It is a 1526 1/4 teston from Duchy of Lorraine, also known as Lotharingia. The portrait is of ANTOINE the Good, who was the Duke of Lorraine from 1508-1544.

The 1/4 testoon is in very nice condition. It has a very attractive portrait. I quickly looked at one cgb.fr auction but everything from the early 1500's (testoons & etc) were worn flat. Also very nice date if I recall the z was normal for "2" back then. Just proves one can find nice stuff on ebay but it probably takes some looking? I only have one coin from the 1520's: a VF 1528 "plague thaler" (but not French).

I did miss a very nice 5 Francs at a reasonable price from NE Numismatics earlier this year but c'est la vie.

My motto is both the desserre and serre Union et Force 5 F's in unc or bust! I can't believe they're that rare. To be honest this week I called this US dealer who has one of the type: a L'An 8 Bordeaux (K mm). The obverse is very crudely struck & the coin has lite wear but is an AU (unslabbed). I have been trying to buy the coin from this same dealer for around 3 years now but he wants a really high price for it. The fact that he has kept it in stock (and brought it to major shows) for the past 3 years should be some indication that his asking price is too high. But who can explain coin dealers?

CGB.fr doesn't seem to carry many nice 5 F's or ecus these days. They do have them in the archives but I don't see them these days. My guess is that the coins are sold at shows over there?

Also I guess Wade Henderling is out of business?

Oops that first link is broken, the main page for auction is here
http://www.argenor.com/fr/vente-pub...que-09052007

Thanks for the info. The coin at patrickguillard.com appears quite nice but I'm surprised these have moved so quickly up to the $4,000 price level for a common date. I think I'll wait a bit to se what else I can find.

Hmm, I think you'll find the ecus and demis from 1643-1650's and from the 1690's on a lot lot more common. It also depends how picky you are regarding condition. Still demi-ecus in any grade shouldn't be expensive.

I looked at cgb.fr at all of the material they had of the era of your 1/4 testoon had nothing like that portrait - it was all worn flat.

I think the clue is the size of the country.

You travel a couple of kilometers and you are in another country where they speak a different language.
So you simply grow up with these languages. They are taught at school and used in everydays life as there are a lot of people from France, Belgium and Germany working here.

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Hmm, I think you'll find the ecus and demis from 1643-1650's and from the 1690's on a lot lot more common. It also depends how picky you are regarding condition. -Gallienus

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Yes, the challenge of finding the ecus from 1660-1689 is the fun part. If they are at least VF and without adjustment marks on the portrait I will usually snap them up. There are so few out there, that I feel if I was more picky I wouldn't own any.

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I looked at cgb.fr at all of the material they had of the era of your 1/4 testoon had nothing like that portrait - it was all worn flat.

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I spend a lot of time searching for these as well. I discovered that Jean Elsen has some nice testons of Antoine (1508-1544); here's one in his latest price list-
http://www.elsen.eu/index.aspx?tabi...=l240details
but wow the price is significantly higher than what I am used to paying. In a moment of weakness I might still buy something from him. Have to finish up paying for spring term tuition bills first.