Ha! Ha! Ha! Oh, my gosh! I made a mistake on my last question and a few of you had fun with it. I meant to ask if I could still get US dollars for an amount of 131,000 Lira, and where I could make this exchange? Also, I have 395 Euros and wondered the same thing about them.
Ron and Ira had me cracking up. I laughed so hard.

If you are going to Europe anytime soon, I would save those Euros. You probably got them at a great exchange rate.

That's the truth, I somehow ended up with about 500 euro when I came home last July. Rather than cash them in I decided to keep them for my trip this next summer. They're in my safe deposit box presently earning more for me than any of my other investments!!

It will be possible to exchange lira
banknotes and coins free of charge at the branches
of the Bank of Italy for a period of 10 years, i.e.,
until 1 March 2012.

Princess, trying to be more helpful this time, if I was in your situation, and I planned never to return to Europe and I couldn't find anyone to sell to who was planning to go to Europe, I would take the money to a local foreign exchange dealer. They would give me about US$30 for the lira and US$489 for the euro. Perhaps you live in or near a city that has a similar facility?

The lira used to be about 1900 or so to the $$$. At 2000 lira to the dollar, should be about $65.00, give or take a couple of bucks.

Actually 131,000 lira is equal to 67.66 euro. That's about $ 54.00.

I guess you're talking about doing these conversions in the US? Not sure where you'd cash in the euro in the US, but you can still do them at a National Bank of Italy in Italy.

Correction. I meant "not sure where you'd cash in the lira in the US". You can cash in the euro for dollars at most major banks. Just don't expect a lot for them.

Patrick, please check out your math vis a vis Euro/$$ conversion at current rate.

Thanks everyone for being so helpful. We'd love to return to Europe, but don't know when.

Hi Princess,

Hold on to your lire and euros for another month. The euro should get closer to $1.30

Duh, OK Budman, so used to doing dollars to euro, I went backwards. Yes, the 67.66 euros are worth $ 85 dollars. I wish I could get 67 euro for $54.

Princess, if you can't find a local solution, you could courier your money to Accu-Rate Corporation, who will send you a cheque or make a direct deposit to your account, see http://www.accu-rate.ca/html/english...ss/selling.cfm

Incidentally, Accu-Rate will buy any of the non-circulating but still legal tender pre-euro currencies at about 50% of the rate you would get if you sold them to the respective national banks in Europe.