I noticed that France had several fairly recent coins with very low mintages. The 1981 5 centimes has a mintage of only 50,000, and the 1989 5 centimes is just 72,000. And there are some other dates of 2 franc coins and such, all in the 80's and 90's with low mintages. Does anyone know why this is? I can't figure why France would mint hundreds of millions of each date 5 centimes coins from 1966 to 1980, then in 1981 mint only 50,000 then from 1982- 1988 not one date has a mintage less than 130,000,000 and then the 1989 has a mintage of 72,000. And after that the only low mintages are for proof 5 centimes. Does anyone know why? Is this just a typo in my 2004 krause book or something like that? Or a metal shortage maybe? rexesq
It is probably because of the previous large mintage numbers. Typically a country will only issue coins based on need. So if they had several years of large mintages that may well have been enough to serve the purpose of commerce. So in following years they only needed a few and thus only minted a few.
Agreed; let me just add that, in the case of the francs denominations, mintage figures for the regular issues may also have varied according to how many circulating commems were issued. The Charles de Gaulle 1F commem or the Jean Moulin 2F commem, for example, were relatively common. As for the 5 centimes coins, well, the low mintage figure in that KM catalog is (almost) accurate for 1989, but not for 1981 http://www.monnaiedeparis.fr/fonds_doc/fquantite.htm ... Roughly 135 million pieces is a bit more than 50,000. Christian
Hello, The reference book I use for french modern coinage is "Le Franc VII". It says for the 1981 cinq cts : 135,000,011 and for the 1989 cinq centimes : 95,449. The first one is common (2 euros, approx 2.70 USD at today's rate in MS 63) while the second one is scarcer (18 euros, approx 24 USD in MS 63) Hope this helps Cucumbor
I just looked it up: Krause lists for the 5 centimes 1981 a mintage of 134,974,000 . I use the 32nd edition (2005).
I have the 31st edition but it says 50,000 and 72,000. There must have been some misunderstanding that led to a later change in mintage totals.
Hello, The mintage I'm referring to is including BU and sets. So the total must be about the same. Far from 50,000 or 72,000 though Cucumbor
The 32 edition lists the 5 centime with the 134 million mintage but it does list the i centime of 1981 with a mintage if 50,000
Don't get suckered in by low mintages on moderns. Even where the mintages are truly low it's usually because they are mint set only coins and they all survive. It's the big mintage coins that can be almost impossible to find. If you do need a low mintage coin for a collection try to find out the reason it's low mintage. Note the 1961 5c is up to a $3 valuation in the new Krause. This is a fairly tough coin in unc and much tougher in gem. I'm not sure it's really worth $3 but as a rule of thumb if a modern is tough in the US it is nearly as tough in the country of origin.
Side note: The mintage figures do not really say much about how common - in absolute numbers - the coin in question is. For example, the franc coins that were in circulation before the euro came could be redeemed until 2005, and those pieces that went back to the central bank this way were sold as scrap metal, melted down, etc. In relative figures, however, a coin/year that was rare before will still be rare ... Christian
