French mint mark question.

My question is, when determining the mint of a French coin, does there have to be an actual letter present, or do the symbols (cornucopia, star) sufficiently represent. The answer determines the difference between a .35 cent coin and a 5.00 dollar coin. Don't want to make a bad call. Can anyone help? Thanks

 

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The symbols not only tell you the mint but the assayer.

 

All the ones I know about have an actual letter.

 

What French coin to you want to know about. I collect them too. :welcome:

 

Basically the cornucopia is the symbol of the Monnaie de Paris. On older coins (roughly pre-1960) you may find extra characters referring to the place where a coin was minted, e.g. "B" for Beaumont-le-Roger. Paris used the "A" until 1900 or so. Today pretty much every French coin has two symbols - the cornucopia, and the chief engraver's sign. However, neither says where the coin was minted; most coins are produced in Pessac near Bordeaux these days.

Christian