Earl commented in the sinking dollar post:
I was wondering what that tin full of foreign currencies and coins was for, now I know, so I will have some money with value - oops, they changed to the Euro. Nevermind, I am almost broke, again.
I hadn't thought about that. Just great. My whole salsa jar full of Deutsche Marks and lire and francs might as well be full of tiddly-winks. Or Confederate money. At least all the kroner and kronor and GBP are still useful for something other than as coasters for very small drinks or leveling the odd piece of furniture.
Hey, toss the lira and francs if you like, but hold on to that CS of A stuff. Way things are headed, it just may shake off the dust and rise again after all. ;)
ReplyDelete"I try to save my money. Who knows? Maybe one day it'll become valuable again." — Milton Berle
ReplyDeleteCheck with your bank's foreign currency people. Even though they're no longer legal tender, I think you're still able to exchange marks and liras for euro.
ReplyDeleteLook at it this way, Tam - you could make some seriously interesting buckshot loads.
ReplyDeleteYou can still exchange Deutsche Mark for Euros. Most likely the same applies to the other countries.
ReplyDeleteThey would make amusing, if somewhat arrogant, poker chips.
ReplyDeleteYou should use them as poker chips. I did when I was stationed in Italy, and that was just before they converted to the Euro and the lire still had some value. At a conversion rate of 1936.27 lire per Euro, and the Euro trading against the dollar at about 1:1, that made the 1000-lire coin worth about US$.50.
ReplyDeleteWith a 1000-lire ante, that made for a low stakes game between friends, but when you had stacks of 500-lire, 200-lire, 100-lire, 50-lire, 20-lire, and 10-lire coins laying around the table, it felt like so much more. A 5-lire (worth US$0.0026) coin really cemented the idea that you had a pocket full of play-money.
As we did most of our real shopping in the PX or Commissary at the local Camp with dollars, the feeling amongst LTs was that once you turned dollars into lire, you had pretty much already spent it, because it wasn't worth the bother of converting back.
I happen to collect obsolete currency and coins if you are interested in getting rid of them.
ReplyDeleteI am especially interested in anything from Germany and the Confederate States.
Email me if you are interested in unloading them.
Joe
Gold coins.
ReplyDeleteHold on to anything made of any quantity of Silver. They are already well above face value.
ReplyDeleteI've stopped using nickels to pay for things and have started putting them in a jar as well. nickel is known as "poor-man's silver".
-Diamondback