Rare pennies: which ones are worth the most money?

Breaking your piggy bank could well bring you money! You probably know it: rare coins are highly sought after by collectors, so some are ready to buy them back at high prices. Several elements are taken into account to determine the value of a coin: its condition, its face value, its country, its year, its manufacturing defect, its belonging to a collection… So empty your wallet, inspect the folds of the sofa and turn the pockets of your pants: a treasure may be hiding inside…

If you are more likely to collect a nice sum with old francs or with commemorative coins of 1 and 2 euros, you can also make yourself a nice margin with a few centimes. Even with those famous 1 euro cent coins you don’t know what to do with. In our slideshow below, discover the value of your coins according to their country. Germany, Greece, Spain or Malta: you may have brought back a lucrative souvenir from your last vacation! The prices given are based on figures from Info Collection, which specializes in this field.

Have you scrutinized all your pennies but none stand out? Don’t worry: you can still find a use for your red coins. You can, for example, offer merchants to exchange them for you: some are desperate for small change. You can also get rid of them in the automatic checkouts of supermarkets.

While you’re there, look for Eurocycleur terminals: present in some supermarkets, they offer you to collect your small parts in exchange for credit on your loyalty card, shopping vouchers or even a donation to an association. On the same principle, the Centimeo terminals will exchange your cents for chewing gum, a square of chocolate or an organic cookie.

As a reminder, some red coins could be doomed to disappear. Already in 2018, the members of the 2022 public action committee proposed to extend the abolition of 1 and 2 cent coins to the entire euro zone in a report published on Friday July 20. This measure has already been implemented in “Ireland, Finland and Belgium for example”. According to the authors of the report, this is a first step towards the “zero cash” policy in order to better fight against fraud. A request that is all the more logical for them since “the proportion of transactions made in cash is lower in France than in other European countries”. Often considered useless and lying in the bottom of pockets, they are for many considered undesirable. During a citizen consultation launched in May 2021 by the European Commission, 72% of Europeans considered them cumbersome and unnecessary. In practice, more than 17,000 people responded, including 79% Germans and 6.8% French. In case of disappearance, the value of its small parts could still increase on the side of the collectors.