A dealer friend of mine had a few of these today. I was wondering if anyone has any information on them? As you can see it has been canceled as the damage was done to demonized the coin. I am quite sure that it's an English pattern piece,not sure of any values. Thanks for any information .
5 ECU, not 5 euro. The term "euro" was created in December 1995. I don't think the damage is due to some official "cancellation" - as far as I know, the Belgian ECU coins were the only ones that had legal tender status. Apparently the piece was designed by Raphael Maklouf (who also designed some QEII portraits used on British coins). Here is an intact one ...
All the specimens were canceled or damaged in the same manner . So just took it as a coin that had been canceled . Thanks for the input .
Seems they were issued by (or on behalf of) a British company called "International Currency Bureau". I found a few more at the website of the Fitzwilliam Museum. As I wrote, however, none of these were legal tender. The Belgian ones, issued between 1987 and 1998, were demonetized when the euro started on 1 Jan 1999. Also, France had some ECU coins, but those were dual denomination (FRF-XEU) pieces. The Isle of Man also issued a few ECU pieces; no idea what their status was. All others were either medals, or temporary local issues, e.g. for some Europe Day or Week in some city. The latter could at least be spent at some participating businesses and redeemed later. Christian
I think some of the countries represented would of been upset with the design.. especially Portugal with a huge star struck right on top of them
"International Currency Bureau" was a creation of Richard Lobel, the coins were marketed through "Coincraft" - his company. Coins created by ICB were prominently featured in Coincraft sales literature and catalogues. As you note, some countries like France, Belgium and even Ireland issued Ecu denominated coins because up until ca. late 1998 or early 1999 Ecu was forcasted to be the name of the new currency. When the currency was officially named Euro, then several countries quickly got on the bandwagon and started cranking out Euro denominated coins in anticipation of releasing them in 2002, so you have several places with 1999 dated Euro coins. I wonder what the monetary status of the Irish issues from 1990 are?
Ah, so that is the connection. Thanks! Now that is a different story. As you know, the euro was "born" on 1 January 1999, but the conversion, so to say, took three years. Some countries such as France and Germany started producing the euro circulation coins in mid/late 1998 - France and some others decided to use 1999 (the start of the euro currency*) as the first year on the coins; Germany and some others picked 2002 (when the euro cash became legal tender). There were a couple of local/regional "euro" issues too, but those were mostly souvenir pieces ... Just looked those up in my catalog. Those three ECU pieces were issued by the Irish central bank, symbolic face value, and not legal tender. (* Stocks for example have been traded in EUR since that day, and euro based non-cash transactions were possible in those three years too.) Christian
