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Belgian franc: from 1948 until the euro

Started by <k>, April 08, 2019, 08:56:35 PM

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<k>

#60



The French language version of the 20 francs coins.

This large images lets you see the mint and privy marks.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

<k>

#61


The Dutch language version of the 50 francs coin.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

<k>

#62


The French language version of the 50 francs coin.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

<k>

There were no more new coin types for the Belgian franc after this, as the country awaited the transition to the euro.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

<k>

#64
There was a distinct change in design style from the mid-1980s onward.

Gone were the Latin gods and cereals.

In came spare and functional modern designs.


Stylised portraits were also now used.

They resembled those found on some Scandinavian coins.


See:  Stylised portraits.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

<k>

#65



As a schoolboy aged 11, I briefly visited Blankenberge in Belgium.

This was as part of a school trip.


I was already fascinated by coins, and this was my first trip abroad.

I liked the design above and still do.


Initially I thought it was meant to be a saint with a halo.

The head of Ceres also suggested a nun to me. 

:D  And no, I wasn't religious either.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

<k>

#66



This is another fine design.

It's obvious that it was modelled on a real person.


See also:  Ancient mythology on modern coins.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

chrisild

Don't remember when I first saw one of the "miner" type coins, but it must have been after I had been "exposed" to coins from the nearby Netherlands. :)  Why? Because I had learned that the Dutch would have their queen on every piece - and I thought, aha, so that must be the Belgian king.

Later I learned that this was not even a depiction of some particular person but a sort of generic portrait of a miner. Pretty cool ...

Christian

eurocoin

Yes the miner coin is ok too although I do not know to what extent mining used to be typically Belgian and how important mines used to be in Belgium. While in school in Belgium, over the years I had to visit 2 different mines so it may have been somewhat significant.

All of this leaves a lot of questions of course. Why Ceres? Why Mercury? Why an olive branch? etc. Surely there must have been some sort of (bad) reasoning behind all that.

chrisild

Mining was definitely a big industry in Belgium, especially in the greater Liège/Charleroi region. You may remember the Bois du Cazier disaster - to commemorate its 50th anniversary, Belgium issued a €10 collector coin which also featured exactly that miner's head ...

Christian

<k>

Quote from: eurocoin on April 10, 2019, 08:38:09 PM
All of this leaves a lot of questions of course. Why Ceres? Why Mercury? Why an olive branch? etc. Surely there must have been some sort of (bad) reasoning behind all that.

As I mentioned, the Walloons were dominant in those days, so they were evidently influenced by the sort of themes found on certain French coins. Of course, France has a Mediterranean region, whilst Belgium does not, so the olive design does look out of place on a Belgian coin.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

chrisild

That branch on the 20F coin is a laurel twig, according to Schön anyway ...

<k>

Quote from: chrisild on April 10, 2019, 09:30:28 PM
That branch on the 20F coin is a laurel twig, according to Schön anyway ...

Laurel trees are native to the Mediterranean region - not Belgium.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

bart

During the postwar period (1945-1951) there was a real political struggle in Belgium, called the Royal Question. Due to the way he acted during the war (visiting Hitler, marrying without the parlement's consent) Leopold III ad to stay in exile in Switzerland for a while. In the meantime his brother Charles of Flanders was regent of Belgium.
This was one of the reasons why "allegorical" themes were chosen for the first postwar coinage: to avoid putting the monarch's effigy or monogram on circulation coinage. A royal theme was only used on the silver 100 francs. This was a coin that, together with the silver 20 and 50 francs, saw almost no circulation. As there were notes of 20,50 and 100 francs available, the silver coins were hoarded.
Only in 1964, 13 years after his accession to the throne, was Baudouin's monogram used for the first time on a circulation coin (25 centimes). His effigy was used for the first time in 1969 on the 10 francs coin. Although Elstrom's design of king Baudouin was considered very beautiful, the reverse coat-of-arms design was considered a failure: as the design was very detailed, it proved impossible to get all of the details into the coin, as nickel proved too hard a material for this.

<k>

Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.