Monnaie de Paris

Mint mark of the mint

The Monnaie de Paris is the French state mint .

General

It has been legally organized as a so-called EPIC ( établissement public à caractère industriel et commerciel ) since 2007 , comparable to a German public law institution , and is distributed across the main location (Hôtel de la Monnaie, completed 1775) on the Quai de Conti in Paris and since 1973 a second location in Pessac in Gironde . The actual production of the coins takes place in Pessac, where the euro has been minted since 1998 .

Monnaie de Paris

Reverse of a medal from the Monnaie de Paris

In addition to the head office, the Hôtel de la Monnaie also has an extensive numismatic collection, the Musée de la Monnaie de Paris.

In addition to the monopolized functions of minting French coins , the Monnaie de Paris is also commercially active in competition with private companies in the following areas:

Production and sale of foreign currency coins , collector coins and medals
Production of works of art and jewelry under the registered trademark "Monnaie de Paris"
Rental of the space for private events
Production of security features to protect against counterfeiting

history

In 864, Charles the Bald centralized French coinage at the royal court in Paris.

In 1358, the structure of the Mint, which was valid for more than four centuries, was built, which was divided into an administration regulating the coinage on the one hand and state-controlled workshops on the other. Since 1879 it has been legally stipulated that the French state alone has the right to mint coins.

After extensive renovation, the Monnaie opened to the public in September 2017.

management

2007 to 2017: Christophe Beaux.
since 2017: Aurélien Rousseau.

Criticism from coin collectors

Since the introduction of the euro, the Monnaie de Paris has attracted attention due to the large number of new issues of collector coins. These collector coins sometimes have low, “crooked” denominations (¼ Euro, 1.5 Euro) and shapes (for example rectangular), but are often only issued for a multiple of the nominal value. In addition, the number of copies is varied widely and several collector coins minted in different metals are often issued on the same subject. For these reasons, the value developments of the French collector's coins are very different and the total amount of issues is difficult to understand without specialist literature. Some of these collectible coins are also difficult to obtain because they were sometimes not even offered in France.