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The franc (/ f r æ ŋ k /; French: franc français, [fʁɑ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛ]; sign: F or Fr), [n 2] also commonly distinguished as the French franc (FF), was a currency of France.Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money.
The coins were originally minted in two denominations, 20 and 40 francs for Napoléon Bonaparte. The 40-franc gold piece did not become popular. [8] The 20 franc coins are 21 mm in diameter (about the size of a U.S. five-cent piece or a Swiss 20 Rappen coin), weigh 6.45 grams (gross weight) and; at 90% pure, contain 0.1867 troy ounces (5.807 g) of pure gold.
Like the French franc, the Belgian and Luxembourg francs ceased to exist on 1 January 1999, when they became fixed at 1 EUR = 40.3399 BEF/LUF, thus a Belgian or Luxembourg franc was worth €0.024789. Old franc coins and notes lost their legal tender status on 28 February 2002. One Luxembourg franc was equal to one Belgian franc.
About one who is always short of money or always asking for some, one says that « Il lui manque toujours 3 sous pour faire un franc » ("he always lacks 3 sous to make up to one franc"). Sometimes it is said "missing 19 sous to have one franc", with one franc worth 20 sous; U.S. version: "he always needs a penny to have a round dollar".
The government of the child Charles VI abandoned his father's sound money policy by replacing his gold franc à cheval. The new écu à la couronne weighed less than the franc but its value was increased from 1livre (₶.), i.e. 20 sous (abbr. s), for the franc to 22s. 6d. (i.e. 1₶. 2s. 6d.) for the écu.
All de facto present currencies in Europe, and an incomplete list of the preceding currency, are listed here. In Europe, the most commonly used currency is the euro (used by 25 countries); any country entering the European Union (EU) is expected to join the eurozone [ 1 ] when they meet the five convergence criteria. [ 2 ]
U.S. coins from virtually any era can be worth well more than their face value, depending on their rarity and condition — and the 1990s and early 2000s are no exception.
Half Louis d’or of Louis XIII (1643) [nb 2] The Louis d'or (a gold coin) replaced the franc which had been in circulation (in theory) since John II.In actual practice the principal gold coin circulating in France in the earlier 17th century had been Spanish: the 6.7-gram double escudo or "doubloon", of which the Louis d'or was an explicit copy.