1855-BB French 5 Centimes!

No, not short guy and Waterloo Napoleon, that's Napoleon III  on the obverse. He was the famous Napoleon's grandson with a fantastic taste in beards. Victor Emmanuel II of Italy had a similar taste. When I saw this coin at the flea market, I immediately bought it simply because I didn't have one before. It's not special at all and isn't worth much unless in high grades. This one is worth about $1.00 and I got it for $0.25.

1923 French 5 Centimes!

What a beautiful coin. And for only $0.25, how could I resist? This was the most beautiful world coin I got that weekend. It's also worth 6x what I bought it for. So for $0.25, I got a $1.50 coin beautiful coin! The hole in the middle was most likely for saving metal and money which would all the government to produce more coins for cheaper prices with all the metal they saved. Unlike the U.S., France's economy was severely crippled by WWI and they needed to cut corners as much as possible. Unfortunately, these efforts were to no avail and the French Franc became practically worthless in the following years. I like how the dirt accents the design on the coin. I wonder if this adds any value.

1922 French "Bon Pour" 1 Franc!

Here's an interesting coin. Why? Because it marks the period when France (and most of Europe) went off the gold and silver standard (at least temporarily) because of WWI, and later the Great Depression. France didn't recover until after WWII when a new Franc was introduced at 100 times the value of the old franc. This was issued before the Franc was in need of such a serious revaluation, although it was a major step down from the silver 1 Franc coin they produced just two years earlier. As such, it isn't worth much, just around $0.25.

1984 French 10 francs!

This is a beautiful coin in a bad shell. It's pretty well oxidized which is why it's black instead of its normal gold-ish color. You can still see some remnants on the obverse but it's basically all black. There's a very cool description of it here and it gives all of the specifics and such. The only thing it doesn't give is the value which is $1.50.

1991 French 10 Francs!

I was considering censoring this but since since "it" is so small there's no need. This is in terrible condition for being so new and having not been in circulation long. I guess it's pretty heavy like the British Pound which makes it easier to be scrached and apparently run over. There are two versions of this coin. One has medal alignment and the other coin alignment which you can read about here. This one has the coin alignment, which does not matter because they have the same value, and is worth around $1.50.

1972 French 5 Francs!

Got this from my grandmother when she let me go through all of her coins from her world travels. Most of them were plain except the 1904 Indian Head Cent I got. There were also plenty of other  French and German coins that I picked up, most of which have already been shown. Because this coin is so scratched and dented it's worth around $0.20.

1981 French 2 Francs!

Got this modern looking French coin at the flea market a while back. By modern looking I mean it looks like the traditional design in the whole picture, but not as much in the details. Notice the obverse looks pretty flat and the Sower's face looks pretty disproportioned. It's pretty dirty as well, most likely from sitting in the same foreign coin bin forever. It's made of nickel and worth only about $0.40.

1945 French 1 Franc!

Here's the best example of this coin I own. I've got three, all are the same year and mint mark. As is expected of wartime coinage (especially European) this coin is aluminum and low value. It's also about quarter sized. I wonder what this would have looked like in America. If it was aluminum, in those times, it would probably be this big or bigger. Keep in mind those days were before aluminum was a well known and widely used metal and even today it goes for about $0.50/lb. Lucky me this coin has numismatic value and is worth $0.50 without the other 99.99% of the pound.

1999 French 20 Euro Cents!

I most likely got this as a gift seeing as I did not buy it or get it in change. Where I got it still remains a mystery. It's a nice first year coin that was sadly made in the many, many, many millions and is common. This commonness leads to the low value of exchange value which is $0.26 at the moment.

1963 French 20 Centimes!

Back on track with the series. Now we're on the $0.20 coins that many Americans are unfamiliar with. These 1/5 dollar coins are actually more preferred than the more American-friendly 1/4 dollar coins to the rest of the world. The Euro uses a 20 Euro Cent coin, England uses a 20 Pence coin, and almost every country has, at some point, had a 20 cent coin. Including America. These coins were made, hated, and phased out in a matter of years with very few being made. Almost like the Anthony dollar these coins were almost the same size as quarter and were often confused which added to the people's hate of them and the government's withdrawal of them. Today they are worth at least $100.00 in the lowest grade and hundreds of thousands in high grade. Now that I've gotten completely off track talking about American 20 cent coins and not about this French 20 cent coin, I'll start on the coin at hand. It's just like its newer, shinier, smaller, more attractive counterpart except it's older, duller, bigger, and less attractive. It's also worth $0.10 instead of the $0.05 the 5 centimes is worth.

1985 French 5 Centimes!

Can't remember where or when I got this coin. What I do know is that it is a very beautiful coin. It's like a mixture of the extremely beautiful Mercury Dime and the extremely old Lincoln Wheat Cent which makes for a great coin. This great coin also has some French on it, of course. Liberte means Liberty, Egalite means Equality, and Fraternite means Fraternity or Brotherhood. Republique Française means French Republic and, of course, centimes means cents. While I don't know where or when exactly I got this coin, I do know that it is worth $0.05.

2007 French 2 Euro Cent!

 Here I am back on schedule. This is one of those coins I got in the return slot of a coin machine. I always check the return slots for coins people have left behind and what do you know it paid off. I got this around 2 years ago which somewhat explains its lack of damage and tarnish. It's still amazing that this traveled across an ocean in someone's pocket and most likely ended up in circulation for a short time before I found it. The only thing that I had to go on at the time was the RF on the reverse. Thanks to the internet it wasn't hard to figure out. It is worth $0.05. the picture below shows the edges of a few of my 2 Euro Cent coins.