Portia

what creative things are you going to do with left over coins. You can't cash these in here, so I am looking for projects.

lcuy

Save them for your next trip! I keep baggies with coins (and even small bills)from countries I visit. It is amazing how often I'll go back sooner than I expected, or I'll give them as a bon voyage gift to friends. It is so nice to have bus or phone money when you arrive in a foreign country. If you never go back, give them to a kid and inspire a future traveller!

Grasshopper

Unless you are going back before early 2002 you are not going to be able to use them on another trip. I always am pretty careful at the end, using my leftover cash to pay off as much of my hotel bill as possible and then paying the balance with a credit card. If I have anything left over I throw it in the Flight Attendants collection on the plane. Also, my last taxi driver has been known to get a great tip.

mimi taylor

I recently returned with lots of coins and I will not be returning again until next year when they will be replaced by euros. So for Christmas gifts, I am covering two wooden frames with them and some left over russian and chinese coins from my husbands.

Betsy

On the last couple of transatlantic flights, the flight attendants distributed envelopes for donations of loose change. The coins are given to UNICEF. I saved a few 500 lire coins (the silver and gold ones) to make magnets for the fridge.

Patrick

The UNICEF thing is a great idea. I know that a couple of travel agencies locally also collect foreign coins and pass on to UNICEF. I assume that you'd want to do that as well before 2002.

Amy

Check with an elementary school teacher to see if he or she would like to use them. My students love to explore the differences in foreign coins (during recess!) and figure out the values (charts are on the Net, of course, or in the travel section of most newspapers.)<BR>Coins are a small history of the place, plus are wonderful for economics lessons.

Christina

I am going to Guadeloupe in a few days to spend them before the end of the year.

elvira

Buy self-adhesive magnetic tape (available at crafts stores) and cut to fit the coins to make refrigerator magnets.<BR><BR>Most international airports have the boxes for loose foreign currency to be donated to a children's fund.<BR><BR>At $1.50 a pop, 10ff coins in quantity are a lot to toss aside; ask at work, school, church if anyone is going to France soon, and see if you can "sell" the coins to them.<BR><BR>The centime coins make great additions to scrapbooks...whether decorating the cover or pages; make jewelry (barrettes, earrings, pins) from them.<BR><BR>Lastly, I bet if you mailed your coins to UNICEF, they wouldn't send 'em back.<BR><BR><BR><BR>

unicef

From our experience, British Airways was the airline that was most active collecting for UNICEF. Besides collecting the coins on transatlantic flights, they'll accept them at any BA counter at the airport.

David

I have a question closely associated that perhaps can be answered. I purchased 700 francs for our trip to France the week of Sept. 11th. As you can guess, we didn't make it and I have 700 very pretty looking french francs. Hopefully we will be able to go in the spring. Looking for suggestions:<BR>Do I convert them back to Dollars at the bank here in the States<BR>Do I hold onto them and when I reach France convert them to Euros (I assume that is a possibility)<BR>Any guesses which banks will give me the most for my francs?<BR>I assume french banks will convert to Euros without the fees associated with banks here. (But you may need to show french citizenship to avoid fees?<BR>Anyway, anyone care to venture what the best course to follow.

Patrick

David, you are in a similar situation to what I have been asking on this board. I have about $600 worth of Lira returned to me by cash as a refund for rained out opera tickets. It has been pointed out that national banks (in your case the national bank of France) will exchange those francs for Euros anytime up to two years (or perhaps longer) for no fee at their exact value.<BR>I suggest you wait till you get to France and exchange them at that time. My guess is that if you exchanged them back to dollars at your local bank and then later converted them to Euros, you'd end up with about $70 worth instead of the nearly $100 that you probably paid for them.

David

Thanks Patrick; now I have a very pressing reason to get to Paris within the next two years! ;-)

adams

According to the web site of Le Credit Mutuel, once francs have been withdrawn from circulation, you will still have one year to exchange coins and ten years to exchange bank notes at Banque de France branches.<BR>

Lauren

During my last trip over, I gave my daughter all my leftover change from EU countries that will go on the euro. She lives in Germany and visited me in Paris.<BR><BR>I had done a day trip to Belgium from Paris and, before meeting up with my daughter, and simply gave the leftover Belgian francs to a student on the way out of Belgium. He was delighted (the total amount of his windfall was about $4).<BR><BR>So, when I left France, that left me only with a few odd francs. Those went into the charity bin at Charles de Gaulle.<BR><BR>To anyone thinking that pre euro coins may increase in value, forget it. I had inherited old coins from my stepgrandfather. Most of them were utterly worthless. I eventually disposed of most of them on ebay. The only coins worth anything have gold or silver in them. I had American pennies back to BEFORE the Indian heads. They were only worth a few bucks each at most. Check with any coin shop if you don't believe me.<BR><BR>Coins do, however, make nice jewelry. I made a necklace out of a two kopeck piece from the reign of Catherine the Great. It is a wonderful conversation piece, but the coin itself is worthless.<BR><BR>Old coins are also great for keeping as a historical reminder, but, again, don't expect riches from them.<BR><BR>If you have no one to give the change to, I do recommend a toss in the charity bin at the airport as you leave Europe.<BR><BR>By the way, most stamp collections ain't worth much either. Only the rare stamps--which the average kid's collection does not contain--acquire value. I dumped my stamp collection on ebay as well.