Question About The Popularity If French Coins

I think a major turnoff as far as modern French coins are concerned are the highly... irregular... practices of the Paris mint. The few people I've encountered who do collect French coins have been pretty much unanimous in their disdain for this French institution.

As for the unpopularity of coins there, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's because the French are less proud of their coinage history than the other two nations you mention. France's coinage mirrors much of it's darker history, things French people would perhaps rather forget... the monarchy, the terrors of the early revolution, the Second Empire and it's ignoble defeat, World War I and the post-war economic collapse, WWII and the Vichy collaborationist state. There's much there not to like. I'm not French, so I can't speak for them, but I suspect only the Napoleonic period is truly popular among French collectors.

Germany (with the one notable exception of the Nazi period, coins from which are illegal to collect in Germany) and Britain are still largely proud of their heritage. Germany has an additional element of interest in that prior to German unification in the mid-1800's, many cities, towns and regions in what is now Germany were independent countries, which issued their own coinage. This "local history" element is much less easily accessible for French coinage (or for that matter, British or US coinage).

Interesting how France has a very rich history in the arts, but their coins are relatively lackluster?
If only the Paris mint had commissioned Auguste Rodin to design a few coins. Of course, his work is all about high-relief, lol.

It shouldn't. I would think interest in ancient and mediaeval history would be just as popular, if not more popular, in France as elsewhere. There just isn't the broad general coin collector base from which ancient and mediaeval collectors are often drawn, to transform those interested people into coin collectors.


From what I understand, the main complaints about the Monnaie de Paris, particularly in recent decades, is their business model, which operates more along the lines of Franklin Mint, Pobjoy Mint or Perth Mint (market oversaturation of a vast quantity of "commemorative coins" that have little national importance and that nobody wants) rather than one of the premier coin-issuing entities of Europe. In decades past, the problem was quite the opposite: their tendency to make one-off "special issues" and reproductions of scarce coins to order, using original dies. Both problems can lead to uncertainty about actual mintage figures.

Our Belgian friend Ageka posted his concerns about the Paris Mint in this rather large thread.

Maybe it's rumors like that which have made those nazi coins more popular in, say, the US than they are over here in Germany. Apart from stolen coins or illegal imports (usually ancients), I don't know of any coin that would be illegal to sell, buy or own here.

As for how collecting coins is "here" or "there", yes, in France there are apparently fewer collectors. Here is an explanation that should not be taken too serious: In the UK and the US you have a long uninterrupted tradition (same political system for many decades, even centuries) that makes collecting interesting. With German coinage there have been many different periods; for example, I focus on coins from my country, the Federal Republic of Germany founded in 1949. Others may use the euro cash introduction as a starting point, others pick 1871 (German Empire founded), others collect German states, and so on. France is kind of in between here.

Christian

Hmm, many American coin forums have a "world coins" section where (apart from a few specialized sections) anything non-US goes. Sure makes sense, based on what people collect. But that is not exactly common elsewhere ...

As for Swiss coins, yes, the designs get a little boring after so many years. Makes you appreciate subtle changes such as the increased number of stars. At least they issue nice collector coins some of which can be had at face value.

Christian

I have collected French Royal silver coins and French Feudal coins 1500-1793 for about 10 years. The artistry in the portraits of the large silver ecus of Louis XIV and Louis XV is quite remarkable. They have risen steadily in price and the nice ones are increasingly hard to come by. The prices for these older French coins were very strong in the recent inumis auction. I don't see any lack of demand for pre-Revolutionary French coins.

While I can understand why French coins from recent history and around the revolutionary period may not be popular, It still just strikes me as odd that many very nice coins from the mid 19th century are so undervalued. For instance, 5 Frank coins from the 1830s- 1870s are quite beautiful, yet are worth little more than bullion in most grades.

ElleKitty- I can understand having a bit of an aversion to German coins. For years I just felt kind of intimidated by the fact that about 1/3 of the 18th and 19th century krause books were the section on Germany. I guess that just the huge numbers of varieties of coins over the years from the pre 1871 German states just scared me away. But I dove in head first and am quite tempted by every thaler I see these days.

Having noted the mention of German coins in this thread, just interjecting a bit here to whine about how anything Third Reich is instantly labelled 'RARE!' or has some sort of text attached like 'At the end of the War most of these coins were destroyedby the Allies due to the 'illegal' NS symbology'... What a Croc!

At the end of the war there was a 'recall' on ALL German (EVERYTHING) Gold, Silver and Platinum; this included bullion, coins, bars, etc (see Proclamation Nr.2 and the earlier Soviet Decree, Nr.111 I think?), but it realistically netted VERY little. People hoarded it all!

There were no recalls on any of the other legal tender coins, and evidence suggests that previously demonetised types actually re-entered circulation!

Now, back to the Silver Coins; over 75% of the 'Swastika' 2RM and 5RM coins were 'unaccounted' for at the end of the war (in otherwords, hoarded). After the introduction of the DM, the West German government were still actively trying to recover these coins - German Silver coins were constantly recovered and re-minted; the Kaiserreich coins were recovered and made into the Weimar Silver pieces; the Weimar pieces were recovered and made into Third Reich Coins; And some of the Third Reich Coins found there way into the early 2DM and 5DM coins!

Still, best estimates at the end of the 1950's suggest that 66% of the Third Reich Silver Coins survived (taking into account returned coins and a 'lost' percentage)... So there is a HELL of a lot of 'RARE' Coin out there!

OK, end Rant :)