Where do donated currencies go?

Hi

Whenever I visit large cities and locations with heavy foreign foot traffic such as airports, museums, motorway service stations, ferry terminals etc. I have seen charity donation boxes dotted around the place and I’ve always wondered where all the coins and notes go after being processed?

I have always (> 50 years) wondered about it as well……. I would have been glad to just have the opportunity to cherry pick from those tons of coins…. maybe I wouldn't have had the time to earn really money, but at least it would have been fun to end every day with black, smelly fingers (who said, that money don't smell?)

probably just gets collected, and sent to companies that buy foreign currencies.

anything not converted probably just gets sold as bulk coins in auctions is my guess.

Here's information on donations to some airlines going to a UNICEF program. https://www.unicef.org/partnerships/change-for-good

Will

Those charity donation boxes are taken care of by specific organizations that are usually advertised for on the boxes.

Without knowing it as a certain fact, I suspect that some of these organizations are listing the currencies, that are not accepted for exchange by the local banks, to online venues for sale to the highest bidders. There is this one vendor, from whom I have purchased banknotes several times, with address in the same municipality as a large international airport.

On a related note… I have even seen listings of coins that are most likely taken from wishing wells and even sewers. Most of those coins are quite worn and on the edge of not being accepted by a bank as valid, due to tear and wear.

Check this out;

https://www.leftovercurrency.com/ .

It would be nice if all of those currencies from those airport bins ended up with crowds such as the Leftover Currency crowd in England.

Aidan.

I find the obselete Italian notes quite hilarious there. They were demonitised 21 years ago!

They have those at the airport here as well, the notes are sold back to foreign exchanges and the coins apparently are given to pilots and cabin staff on aircraft from those countries (For USA, America, Australia, China, Japan, Singapore etc, some Pacific Islands and EU), but I think the more obscure places like French African francs and obselete coins and notes like 1980s Italian 1000 lire banknotes may be scrapped or given to mission shops.

Foreign exchange bureaux here don't accept coins of foreign countries, even high value ones like 5 Swiss Francs, 500 yen, €2 and $2 Australian. Also I think some small notes are not accepted either (Like 10,000 dong or 1,000 Rupiah).

Sjoelund

I have always (> 50 years) wondered about it as well……. I would have been glad to just have the opportunity to cherry pick from those tons of coins…. maybe I wouldn't have had the time to earn really money, but at least it would have been fun to end every day with black, smelly fingers (who said, that money don't smell?)

I would agree.😀

FlyingRedPanda

probably just gets collected, and sent to companies that buy foreign currencies.

anything not converted probably just gets sold as bulk coins in auctions is my guess.

That is a possibility

Coinman48

Here's information on donations to some airlines going to a UNICEF program. https://www.unicef.org/partnerships/change-for-good

 

Will

I might contact them to see how they process the donations and what do they do with the money.

Hapertas

Those charity donation boxes are taken care of by specific organizations that are usually advertised for on the boxes.

 

Without knowing it as a certain fact, I suspect that some of these organizations are listing the currencies, that are not accepted for exchange by the local banks, to online venues for sale to the highest bidders. There is this one vendor, from whom I have purchased banknotes several times, with address in the same municipality as a large international airport.

 

On a related note… I have even seen listings of coins that are most likely taken from wishing wells and even sewers. Most of those coins are quite worn and on the edge of not being accepted by a bank as valid, due to tear and wear.

That’s a good method of acquiring notes and I have seen some several bulk lot of coins that look like they have come from a river so there is a few scenarios where they could be on sites such as Ebay or auction houses located near to a airport, ship port or border towns.

BCNumismatics

Check this out;

 

https://www.leftovercurrency.com/ .

 

It would be nice if all of those currencies from those airport bins ended up with crowds such as the Leftover Currency crowd in England.

 

Aidan.

Hopefully so,😄
 

From digging around I have managed to find their Ebay page which is under a different name and I've seen notes from the 60s-early 00s (ones that cannot be exchanged I assume) go for reasonable prices.

I will also get into contact with them and a few other charities to see if they answer my question.

Moneytane

I find the obselete Italian notes quite hilarious there. They were demonitised 21 years ago!

 

They have those at the airport here as well, the notes are sold back to foreign exchanges and the coins apparently are given to pilots and cabin staff on aircraft from those countries (For USA, America, Australia, China, Japan, Singapore etc, some Pacific Islands and EU), but I think the more obscure places like French African francs and obselete coins and notes like 1980s Italian 1000 lire banknotes may be scrapped or given to mission shops.

 

Foreign exchange bureaux here don't accept coins of foreign countries, even high value ones like 5 Swiss Francs, 500 yen, €2 and $2 Australian. Also I think some small notes are not accepted either (Like 10,000 dong or 1,000 Rupiah).

The photo is from 2009 so it’s only several years after they were demonetised.

Its the same here almost all exchange offices only accept “current series” banknotes and certainly do not accept coins in which in some branches they have a little donation box for the coins.

I remember seeing coins mostly from commonly traveled countries such as the EU, US and Eastern European currencies, but on occasion I have seen pre Euro currencies (Italian lire and French franc), hyper inflation (Romania pre 2005, Russia 1990s and pre 2005 Turkish lira) and on one occasion Cuban pesos!

Heathrow airport has the biggest donation boxes, they are the size of refrigerators on their side. I remember I had time to kill when I was waiting for the flight to Dubai last year and for like 40 minutes I was staring at the coins and note inside looking for ones from obscure countries.

Well from the responses I received from some of the charities and exchange offices (yet to receive a reply from leftover currency) the current coinage tends to be packaged up to a certain weight (normally between 2kg and 1 ton) then they are shipped to the country  of origin.

Sadly most of them scrap the obsolete coins and have declined to sell them, although two of them were kind enough to sent links to their eBay pages and auction houses they sell at often.

Worldwide collection

Sadly most of them scrap the obsolete coins and have declined to sell them...

A surprise! I would think that it would be worth just auctioning them as a bulk lot at the very least!

Interesting, do they do the same for redeemable coins (such as German Marks, or round pounds)?

Hibernia

Worldwide collection

Sadly most of them scrap the obsolete coins and have declined to sell them...

A surprise! I would think that it would be worth just auctioning them as a bulk lot at the very least!

Same here.

Some_Nerd

Interesting, do they do the same for redeemable coins (such as German Marks, or round pounds)?

All the companies I emailed are U.K. based and the responses regarding coins with any sort of monetary value are exchanged either by individuals of the business visiting said country or through a mutual agreement with the central bank/another currency sorting company.

For those who live in the US can access a website similar to Leftover Currency in the UK called Foreign currency & Coin Exchange where you can exchange and buy current coins and banknotes.

https://www.foreigncurrencyandcoin.com/

https://buy.foreigncurrencyandcoin.com/how-it-works/

Maybe they are sold to people who sell bulk foreign coins? I like buying 10kg of world coins. I've bought heaps of 10kg lots…

NN.Ben

Maybe they are sold to people who sell bulk foreign coins? I like buying 10kg of world coins. I've bought heaps of 10kg lots…

 

Makes sense because your located in Australia you get more coins from Asia than I being in europe.  

NN.Ben

Maybe they are sold to people who sell bulk foreign coins? I like buying 10kg of world coins. I've bought heaps of 10kg lots…

 

That is a great way to find examples to fill in gaps in your collection - such as compiling a date run of a coin type.

Aidan.

I can actually answer this one. 

I few years back I knew a guy who owned a 1-person company in charge of these boxes at several German airports that were officially operated by several charity organizations (logos were on the donation boxes).

He had a contract with those charities to set up boxes boxes in their name, maintain them in case of damages, regularly collect the contents, and sort it all out. 

As per his contract, all the Euros (banknotes and coins) were sorted out and valid foreign notes that the banks in Germany were accepting were exchanged into Euro and then the total was wired to the charity. His payment was whatever was left, namely all non-Euro coins, all notes that banks in Germany did not take and so on. 

He would proceed to further sort the valuable valid coins of selected countries (Switzerland, UK, US, Canada, Poland, Japan, Brazil, China and a few more etc. that were frequently in there), as well as redeemable pre-Euro currency that could still be exchanged and collect enough of these until it was enough to be worth an in person trip to the respective country to exchange them (he once told me he just drove to Spain with a few hundred kg of Peseta coins when it was still possible to exchange those), or enough to sell to someone from abroad at a discount on the face value (commercial pilots, NATO personnel stationed in Germany with access to the US banks in the bases,  or people visiting relatives abroad).

He had a sorting machine for Euro and did the rest by hand, a rather tedious work, I once saw his workshop and there were several 1000 kg of coins in bins sorted by country). 

The rest was sorted again into “exotic coins” sold to dealers by the kg (including tokens, 10 kg of “unsorted” worldcoins on ebay is coming from these donation boxes usually, and you can be sure that anything remotly valuable has been sorted out by either the collector or the reseller), and scrap metal for very common types of the pre-Euro era consisting of better metals (e.g. the French and Dutch nickel coins). Leaving those in would devaluate the kg price of the “exotic coins”.

He told me that it was quite lucrative for the charities, as he several times had found 500 € notes and once in a while there were even gold and older silvercoins, but he had to really check carefully before exchanging any banknotes, as counterfeit money from all countries is apparently found frequently.  He also told me that there are several companies in the German market offering such services and it is a cut-throat business (with the competition deliberatly dumping counterfeit notes into the donation boxes or manipulated coins to jam the sorting machines). He also often found razorblades and other nasty stuff like needles or open coin cell batteries. For him it was a nice side business in the evening or weekend, but he made more money with his main job. Not a way to get rich quick (if one is honest).

Amazing info. Thank you, Master_of_Coins!

Leftover currency have the contract in the UK for Heathrow, Newcastle and quite a few other airports I believe. 

Master_of_Coins

I can actually answer this one. 

I few years back I knew a guy who owned a 1-person company in charge of these boxes at several German airports that were officially operated by several charity organizations (logos were on the donation boxes).

He had a contract with those charities to set up boxes boxes in their name, maintain them in case of damages, regularly collect the contents, and sort it all out. 

As per his contract, all the Euros (banknotes and coins) were sorted out and valid foreign notes that the banks in Germany were accepting were exchanged into Euro and then the total was wired to the charity. His payment was whatever was left, namely all non-Euro coins, all notes that banks in Germany did not take and so on. 

He would proceed to further sort the valuable valid coins of selected countries (Switzerland, UK, US, Canada, Poland, Japan, Brazil, China and a few more etc. that were frequently in there), as well as redeemable pre-Euro currency that could still be exchanged and collect enough of these until it was enough to be worth an in person trip to the respective country to exchange them (he once told me he just drove to Spain with a few hundred kg of Peseta coins when it was still possible to exchange those), or enough to sell to someone from abroad at a discount on the face value (commercial pilots, NATO personnel stationed in Germany with access to the US banks in the bases,  or people visiting relatives abroad).

He had a sorting machine for Euro and did the rest by hand, a rather tedious work, I once saw his workshop and there were several 1000 kg of coins in bins sorted by country). 

The rest was sorted again into “exotic coins” sold to dealers by the kg (including tokens, 10 kg of “unsorted” worldcoins on ebay is coming from these donation boxes usually, and you can be sure that anything remotly valuable has been sorted out by either the collector or the reseller), and scrap metal for very common types of the pre-Euro era consisting of better metals (e.g. the French and Dutch nickel coins). Leaving those in would devaluate the kg price of the “exotic coins”.

He told me that it was quite lucrative for the charities, as he several times had found 500 € notes and once in a while there were even gold and older silvercoins, but he had to really check carefully before exchanging any banknotes, as counterfeit money from all countries is apparently found frequently.  He also told me that there are several companies in the German market offering such services and it is a cut-throat business (with the competition deliberatly dumping counterfeit notes into the donation boxes or manipulated coins to jam the sorting machines). He also often found razorblades and other nasty stuff like needles or open coin cell batteries. For him it was a nice side business in the evening or weekend, but he made more money with his main job. Not a way to get rich quick (if one is honest).

Thank you for the interesting detailed information and it must be hard work for the guy organising that much currency.

matt98

Leftover currency have the contract in the UK for Heathrow, Newcastle and quite a few other airports I believe. 

I emailed them a few months back and they did talk about this and buying currency for collectors.