lf2019 - Le Franc - les monnaies, les archives Collectif

The Le Franc adventure began in 1995 and now continues with the publication this year of a new comprehensive book, Le Franc : les Monnaies, les Archives. Le Franc, Les Archives is a true history book offering a scientific approach – an encyclopedia of French modern numismatics.
This new publication is the fruit of extensive work by collectors, researchers and numismatists – be they French or foreign professionals or hobbyists – under the direction of CGB and Les Amis du Franc society (Philippe Théret, Christophe Charve, Xavier Bourbon and Franck Perrin, among others). The recent digitization and study of more than 100,000 archive pages made it possible to establish a picture of today’s knowledge, which had not been updated for more than a hundred years in such a detailed way. It revealed a mine of new information, which we would be glad to help you discover and share with you. Beyond the mere existence and price of each coin, so many historical events, political and administrative decisions, technical or artistic choices are worth knowing about. Getting to know and understand each coin’s environment is exactly what Le Franc, Les Archives intends to do. Coins are thus considered in their specific context – historical, political, administrative, social, cultural and artistic. This is what coin collecting is all about, i.e. giving your collection its unique character.
After the success of Le Franc Poche’s bilingual anniversary edition, this new encyclopedic version is exclusively in French. It offers more than 1,100 richly-illustrated pages with a whole host of archive documents, decrees, monetary orders, explanations, etc. The coin prices provided are those updated in 2016 for Le Franc Poche. Indeed, publishing a new price book was not the goal of Le Franc Les Archives. Prices are given only to complement the extensive research work carried out. Yet, their presentation has been thoroughly redesigned and many notes have been added to them.
The targeted public is wide and varied, and goes way further than the sphere of French modern coins collectors, i.e. the general public, beginner or seasoned or professional numismatists, antique dealers, anybody passionate about history, etc..