Tour of French History Through 5 Franc Coins
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2024
- Coins are a tangible piece of history that can illustrate the politics, art, and economics of a people and time. In this video we examine 5 Franc coins from France and how these coins have recorded the tumultuous history of France from 1814 to 2002.
Some notes:
The 5 Franc coins depicting Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Napoleon III have all been cleaned (never clean your coins!)
The coins shown do not illustrate all of the various 5 Franc coins of France. Many other designs exist! This video simply uses one example coin from each different chapter of government in French history.
The coins displayed are often not the highest quality (given my budgetary constraints, sorry about that!)
The historical information presented is common knowledge and can be found on Wikipedia.
I am no Dan Brown, so if anyone would like to add some comments on other symbols displayed on the coins, please do!
That being said, I should also mention that for the French Second and Third Republic coins displaying Hercules and the Maidens, the two Maidens represent Liberty and Equality.
Apparently I also lack the capacity to say "French throne" or "laurel branches", sorry world!
I hope to make some more of these videos using coins to illustrate history, and also add in a bit more personality. Thanks for putting up with my first attempt at this! Also if you have any suggestions for other coin series that are good illustrations of history, comment below. I personally was going to go for Pennies from the UK next, as the stability of the UK is a nice contrast to the chaos that was occurring in France during this same time period.
Really enjoyed that video, thank you. I have a full set of French coins just prior to Euros. I also have a 5 centimes from 1855. My great grand father was a Frenchman from Bordeaux arriving in Australia in the 1880s Thanks again
Nice video. You should do more videos.
Thank you for sharing your collection & knowledge of the history :)
My pleasure! It was fun using the coins to think about history.
We used to have beautiful coins but now...yuck 🤮! Euro coins are so dull and so childish 😥
14:04 I have actually a coin like this (but a silver 1963) in my hand while watching your video !😅
What do you know about the 1808 A
2 Francs
Napoleon Empereur
Republique Francaise
I don't have any of those in my collection, but The "A" means that the coin is from the Paris mint, and because these coins had an amount of silver proportional to their value the two franc coin would be 10 grams of 0.900 silver (each franc was 5 grams of 0.900 silver). The value of the coin is going to be dependent on its condition, but as a little piece of history it is pretty neat to have something from the time of Napoleon I! Also 1808 was around the high point of the First French Empire and Napoleon's career!
I personally wouldn’t call Napoleon III a “farce”. He was brave on the battlefield and in fact won most of his battles
You are right that Napoleon III bravely took to the battlefield during the Franco-Prussian war at a time when most leaders no longer did such things. That quote is from Karl Marx, so not someone known for their sympathy for imperial leaders. Also it would be hard to compare to Napoleon I!
@@willsnellius certainly! He was very different from his uncle and he certainly deserved a better reputation for his many achievements.
were banknotes commonly used in ww1 France or was it just coins
I'm not sure to be honest, usually whenever there is a war people tend to hoard coins with metal content. The WW1 era coins are fairly common, but I don't know about the balance of banknotes and coins in the economy. Good question!
@@willsnellius like in Britain banknotes weren't used much up till the 50s I believe
Gold coins were called in during 1914, the same as Britain. Gold was wanted for war essentials. The same in Germany, and the rest of Europe.
I have some Lois phillipe 1835/36, 5 franc, coins
They are fun coins and a cool link to history!