Belgian coins just before the euro

[Aernout]

These are the last coins used in Belgium before the introduction of the euro coins.










These are commun. Perhaps you already have them ?

mvg,
Aernout

[squarecoinman]

Nice Aernout

scm

[Bimat]

Those are nice coins...however the obverse could have been better.

I have most of these..My uncle used to visit Belgium (also Germany, Austria and Switzerland quite a few times) regularly during 1995-2000..so he had accumulated a large number of Belgian (and other European countries as I mentioned) coins in a jar. On one of my b'day (may be in 2002), my aunt gave me that jar full of coins as a b'day gift! So these coins are kind of special for me as these were my first foreign coins. So thanks for posting this topic!

Aditya

[chrisild]

Yes, I have those too. And I have always liked Laenen's portrait of king Baudouin/Boudewijn on the 5F and 50F coins. The fiver was even better because both sides share the "three thirds" design. With Albert they went back to more conventional designs in my opinion ...

Christian

[FosseWay]

Was the 50 centimes actually used in the last 15-20 years of the franc? On various visits to Belgium between 1986 and the introduction of the euro I never found a 50c in change. All those that I have have come from bulk lots, and are mostly dated in the 1950s-1970s, when I presume they were regularly used, hence why they found their way back to the UK and into dealers' bulk lots. Or were they theoretically usable, and issued in sets, but never actually used, like the sub-50 lire denominations in Italy or the 1 centime piece in France?

[Figleaf]

I got 50 cent pieces in Belgian post offices, due to the funny rates and stamp denomination. Same thing in France. I remember a small pile of 1 centime pieces in the main Post Office in Paris. Both in the 70s and early 80s.

Peter

[Aernout]

Sometimes we used the 50 cents in payment traffic. Not much.

The main objective of the 50 cents was expelled ants 
They put these coins on a terraces where ants were.

mvg,
Aernout

[Prosit]

I have 33 Belgium types of which a are few from that period.  Belgium has a lot of coin types.
Nice Coins!

Dale

[Bimat]

I have 40 Belgian coins from pre-euro period (not 40 types as there are some spares) and 24 (including few spares) from Euro period. I agree with Dale that there are too many types and sub-types in Belgian coins. Those 143.x type of KM listings actually confuse me many times!

Aditya

[paisepagal]

When I got my first Belgian coins in 2000, i was very intrigued by the portrait of king Badoiun on the 50Fr coin. Just amazing ... And particularly struck that they chose to mint 2 coins of the same type in flemish and French ....with a few exceptions in Latin (which would have mademore sense to begin with !) but this fact led me to understand the unique dynamic in Belgium at least a little

Thanks to aernout... I just need another ~50 more to complete my Belgium type collection 1900 -2001.... Though much of these are pre WWII silvers

[FosseWay]

Ah, so it sounds like the Belgian 50c served the same (non-)purpose as Italian 10 lire coins then... To be given out at post offices, banks etc. because that's what the regulations say, even though they're no use for anything (apart from ant repellent, apparently -- how does that work?). The only Italian 10 lire coins I came across in 'use' when I lived there (mid-90s) came from the bank where I withdrew my salary each month. On one occasion my payment straddled two lumps of money wired from the Ministry of Education to the bank, and I had to collect one part from one counter and the other from another (don't you love bureaucracy?). For arcane reasons I can't begin to fathom the remnant of money in the first part was not rounded to the nearest 50 lire, so although the total received was IIRC 1,060,000 lire, it included 50 lire in completely useless 10 lire coins. On the plus side they were brand new, in Unc, and I still have them.

On Belgian types: I can't say I'd particularly noticed Belgium as being more than normally rich in distinct types, but I suppose if you take into account that most coins come in two forms for linguistic reasons that ups the total somewhat. Then there are all those issues in the period 1950-2002 where medal alignment variants crop up as separate types in KM. I've never understood why Belgian coins specifically suffer from such alignment variations. Nowhere else IME has such a consistent history of 'errors' (if that's what they are) of alignment, such that KM feels the need to list variant types for virtually every denomination and every date.

Nevertheless, Belgian types are orders of magnitude less confusing than British India, which I happen to be sorting through at the moment. Back to the dot counting on 1862 rupees, then...

[Figleaf]

A question of taste whether there are many types or not. No one forces you to collect all the varieties or even both languages. The good thing about Belgian coins is that only the Leopold I silver coins and the early commemoratives are expensive and that there are some interesting pieces to consider.

Peter

[Prosit]

Of course, no one forces one to collect coins at all mcuh less what to collect.
For myself, a coin that says "Belgie" and one with the same design but says "Belgique" are sufficiently different at the macro level to count as different types. Where you draw the "type" lines is a question of personal choice
and one that I am not consistent with in my own collection.  I like that freedom to decide.

I have known at least one collector that collected by denomination regardless of design.  I certainly would be the last to suggest that to be wrong because it isn't for him.

Dale

A question of taste whether there are many types or not. No one forces you to collect all the varieties or even both languages. The good thing about Belgian coins is that only the Leopold I silver coins and the early commemoratives are expensive and that there are some interesting pieces to consider.

Peter

[villa66]

...The main objective of the 50 cents was expelled ants 
They put these coins on a terraces where ants were.

Please, can you say a few more words about this? Did it work?

v.

[FosseWay]

I don't know whether they dislike walking over copper. Slugs and snails certainly dislike this, and one way of protecting specific plants from slug damage is to use copper rings partially embedded in the earth around the plant. I believe the action of the slug's foot as it passes over the copper generates an electric charge that they don't like. Can't really see how this would occur with ants, though.