Coins of France
 Louis d'or: Louis XV. a la croix de Malte 1718 D. |
"The franc (represented by the franc sign ₣ or more commonly just F) was a currency of France. Along with the Spanish peseta, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra (which had no national currency with legal tender). Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money. It was re-introduced (in decimal form) in 1795 and remained the national currency until the introduction of the euro in 1999 (for accounting purposes) and 2002 (coins and banknotes) . . . The franc was introduced by King John II in 1360. Its name comes from the inscription, Johannes Dei Gratia Francorum Rex (John by the grace of God King of the Franks), and its value was set as one livre tournois (a money of account). Francs were later minted under Charles V, Henry III and Henri IV. Louis XIII of France stopped minting the franc in 1641 (replacing it with the Écu and Louis d'Or), but use of the name franc continued in accounting as a synonym for the livre tournois. The decimal franc was established as the national currency by the French Revolutionary Convention in 1795 as a decimal unit (1 franc = 10 decimes = 100 centimes) of 4.5 g of fine silver. This was slightly less than the livre of 4.505 g but the franc was set in 1796 at 1.0125 livres (1 livre, 3 deniers), reflecting in part the past minting of sub-standard coins. However, the circulation of this metallic currency declined during the Republic, which exchanged the old gold and silver reserves (needed to finance wars and try to solve the shortage of food supplies by importing them) against printed assignats, initially designed as bonds based on the value of the confiscated goods of churches, but later declared as legal tender currency. Too many assignats were put in circulation (by largely overvaluing the value of the national properties), and the silver franc rarefied to pay foreign providers, and the unpaid governmental national debt caused decreasing trust in this secondary unit, shortage of silver supplies for producing metallized francs, hyperinflation, even more food riots in the population, and severe political instability and termination of the First French Republic (the political fall of the French Convention, the economic failure of the Directoire that replaced it, then a coup d'état that lead to the Consulate during which only the first Consul progressively gained all the legislative powers against the other unstable and discredited consultative or legislative institutions). In 1803, the germinal franc (named after the month Germinal in the revolutionary calendar) was established, creating a gold franc containing 290.32 mg of fine gold. From this point, gold and silver-based units circulated interchangeably on the basis of a 1:15.5 ratio between the values of the two metals (bimetallism). This system continued until 1864, when all silver coins except the 5 franc piece were debased from 90% to 83.5% silver without the weights changing. The currency was retained during the Bourbon Restoration . . . In 1960, the new franc was introduced, worth 100 of the old francs. Stainless steel 1- and 5-centime, aluminum-bronze 10-, 20- and 50-centime, nickel one-franc and silver 5-franc coins were introduced. Silver 10-franc pieces were introduced in 1965, followed by aluminum-bronze 5-centime and nickel half-franc coins in 1966 . . . [Changeover to the euro:] All French franc coins were demonetized in 2005 and are no longer redeemable at the Banque de France . . . Coins were freely exchangeable until February 17, 2005 at Banque de France only (some commercial banks could still perform it but were not required to offer this service for free after the transition period in 2001), by converting their total value in francs to euros (rounded to the nearest eurocent) at the official fixed rate of 6.55957 francs for 1 euro . . ." — French franc at Wikipedia. This version was edited and (or) revised by Mintmark.com
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