The 1 cent euro coin (€0.01) has a value of one-hundredth of a euro and is composed of copper-covered steel. The coins of every Euro country have a common reverse and each has a country-specific (national) obverse. The coin has been used since 2002 and was not redesigned in 2007 as was the case with…
Rules regarding the issue of €2 commemorative coins Thus far, the Central Bank of Ireland has resisted the urge to ‘optionally’ issue commemorative €2 coins as per their statutory allowance. This is not true of many of our continental cousins in the Euro Zone who, it seems, have taken up their options with increasing zeal…
The Central Bank of Ireland acts as agent for the Minister for Finance in issuing all Irish coin, both circulating and commemorative and has been actively involved in the issuance of Irish collector coin products to mark specific events in Irish history of significant national importance or celebrate national treasures. They usually issue just one…
In 1971, Ireland decimalised its currency in parallel with the UK. We did this because we were tied to the UK Pound at that time and one of the more unusual mathematical aspects of decimalisation was that both countries set the conversion rate for the new penny at 2 or 3 old pennies. One new…
In 1971, Ireland decimalised its currency in parallel with the UK. We did this because we were tied to the UK Pound at that time and one of the more unusual aspects of decimalisation was that both countries adopted a ‘non-decimal’ fraction of the basic unit (100 new pence = one pound), i.e. a decimal…
It may come as a bit of a surprise to many that although Celtic coins have not (yet) been discovered in Ireland, there have been a lot of Roman and Anglo-Saxon coins found – especially the latter. Conservative Irish historians have always said the Romans never got here but they rarely even mention the Anglo-Saxons…
Long before the introduction of struck coinage into ancient Celtic Europe, copper and gold rings were used as currency by Celtic tribes and were often worn on clothing or tied together by ropes. These particular rings, often referred to as “proto-currency”, were created in ancient Moesia (now Bulgaria) as long ago as 7th century BC.…
In order to understand the ‘situation’ of the Irish Celts and, therefore, theorize as to “why they did not produce coins like their English cousins”, we first need to understand the situation of the English Celtic tribes. By the 2nd century BC (the Late Iron Age in Britain) the locals were trading iron “currency bars”…
Celtic coinage is the most intriguing and varied of all the British coins since no one knows specifically for whom, when or where they were produced. To date, over 45,000 of ancient British and Gaulish coins have been discovered in Britain and all of these have been recorded at the Oxford Celtic Coin Index, but…
Introduction The late 18th century is a complicated time from the perspective of collecting tokens insofar as several dealers began to manufacture their own tokens for collectors, i.e. these did not circulate. They doubled and tripled their profits by deliberately producing mules, i.e. mis-matching obverse and reverse dies. They then increased their profits further by…
The Old Currency Exchange is a specialist dealer and valuer of Irish & GB coins, tokens and banknotes 