BU and Proof boxes and sets



In this section, you will find all information on the official BU and Proof boxes and sets in Euro: photographs, mintage and prices, quotations, various comments etc.

Click on the left on the desired country.

 

Boxes and sets for collectors

In the pages of this section, we present to you, for each country, the list of the official boxes emitted in BU, FDC, UNC and Proof qualities. It is above all advisable to define these terms: BU, for Brilliant Uncirculated, urges the minting institute to provide in these boxes new coins, manufactured at the same rate as the circulation coins. The FDC for Fleur De Coin urges “ theoretically” the institute to provide strikes in the condition of the same name. Let us recall that the FDC is the highest numismatic quality. In France, the Mint of Paris ceased issuing FDC since 1991 whereas the first BU sets had appeared in 1984. Thus, no more tokens of quality to be respected, all is much simpler! In addition, among the rare countries of the euro-zone which continue to call their annual boxes “FDC boxes”, one finds Belgium or San Marino… which strike, even for boxes, coins which are not such a quality! On the other hand, one notices for example that the coins contained in the Austrian boxes are of a very particular quality, so that the FDC designation could be allotted to them. In the following pages, we will thus gather under the BU/FDC term all the boxes made up of new coins however struck with the aim of being boxed for collectors. The average issue price of a BU box is €18.40.

Some UNC boxes are also referred hereafter. UNC, for UNCirculated, corresponds to coins which did not circulate, but which was put in rollers. Thus, the Franco-German box “40 years of the treaty of the Elysium”, for example, was partly designed in France and partly in Germany; we know that the coins were put in rollers before being boxed. The coins are thus not at the origin intended to be boxed, the BU quality (and even less FDC quality) cannot be allotted to them. We however gather these boxes in the BU/FDC tables by adding a note on the description page.

For the BU and UNC boxes, we indicate a quotation “2nd choice”: it is the quotation of the series, without the box, in its original condition. Thus, a slightly damaged box will certainly have a lower quotation than a new box, but we will however not reach the condition “second choice”, but a BU box cut in two (which will not thus have any more interest) could always be considered as a coins series in FDC quality (or EF/XF depending of the country) and will thus have the quotation indicated in “second choice”.

The coins in PRF (Proof / BE in French for “Belle épreuve” / PP in German for “Polierte Platte”) quality are rather considered as “medals” than as currency coins, strictly speaking. It is besides for this reason that PRF mintages are not added to circulation mintages in the preceding catalogue. The PRF coins, contrary to BU ones, are struck with a very particular attention, one by one, by a highly qualified workman and the quality is checked after the striking of each coin! The defects on the PRF coins are by this reason extremely rare… We gather the PRF coins in a separate table, following, for each country, the table for the BU/FDC boxes. The average issue price of a PRF box, without gold medal, is €33.00.

 

Official or not?

The official boxes and sets must be issued by governments or monetary institutes for their own account. Since 2002, an incredible number of series of non-official manufacture were put for sale, that we will decline from “almost official " (B) to “completely private and invented” (Z). We include in the reference book “€5” only strictly official sets and booklets (A) and those “less official” but being often considered by the collectors as important to have than the issues of class A.

A - annual BU boxes and sets issued by the Mints including the thematic boxes decided, designed, manufactured and sold by the Mints (including the 20 x 500 boxes issued each year by the Mint of Paris).

B - series of BU coins ordered from a monetary institute by a state administration wishing to offer it to its personnel (for example, the 500 German series 2002 of BU sets, packaged by the Mint of Germany, offered by the Bundestag to its personnel).

C - series pieced together by an other monetary institute with coins obtained at the bank to answer a commercial request (for example, the BU series Greece 2002 pieced together with the agreement of Greece, by the Mint of the Nertherlands).

D - the standards series in booklets ordered from a monetary institute or a private manufacturer by a city or a region which wishes to commemorate an event, related or not to the Euro (for example, the booklets “Berlin”, “Frankfurt” or “Altdorf” in Germany).

E - series of BU coins ordered from a monetary institute by a firm or an association to commemorate a particular event or to make their own promotion (for example the 500 BU series Germany 2002 in booklets, packaged by the German monetary institute, offered by the firm Bergman to its employees or more the regional booklets marketed in France since 2006)

From this “non-official” level on, one slips very quickly into the downright ripp-off since it is not absolutely obvious for the purchaser at the sight of the booklet that this one is not official. We do not index these items on our online catalogue:

Q - series pieced together out of the monetary institute with coins obtained at the bank to answer a commercial request (for example, a BU series Monaco 2003 supplemented by French coins for the 1, 2 and 5 cent facial values, in a booklet of a very beautiful “Monegasque” red, seen in the trade at a strong price, allegedly announced with an issue quantity of 1.000 copies, whereas the official BU series Monaco 2003 does not exist!)
Series can also be packaged without claiming to be considered as “BU”, simply to offer the complete series to the collectors, without any additional expenses related to the presentation (it is the case of the booklets “Mietens” or the Vatican series pieced together on the basis of the 13,000 series struck but not sold in official booklets). Of course, this idea is excellent to provide at current coins prices the complete series to collectors, but in any case these booklets must not be mixed up with the official series issued by the states and duly controlled.

Up to that point, the coins contained in the boxes are authentic and official, only packing is not.
Hereafter, the monetary items contained in the booklets are either not official. About this, it must be recalled that the effigy of the sovereigns or presidents is completely public - as far as one does not use a work carried out by others and that there is no insulting or degrading use: you can tomorrow yourself draw the Queen of England on your plates, nobody will complain about that, even if you put them on sale.
That thus means that the presence of John Paul II, Benedict XVI or Elisabeth II is in no case a guarantee that the item is official! You will also notice that this kind of series carefully avoids the use of the initials “€“or the word “euro”, which have a copyright, and usually replace them by “E”, of which the use is obviously free, the alphabet being public.

U - “patterns” or ”projects" struck by an official minting institute from a private order (for example “patterns of euro 1995” struck by the Mint of Belgium).

X - the series made up of small medals, having the appearance of patterns, of projects, in a country having legal tender in euro (for example, “patterns” of the Vatican, completely private manufactured).

Y - the series made up of small medals, having the appearance of patterns, of projects, for a country not having legal tender in euro (for example, English and Danish series, of completely private manufacture, with a vague relationship with the model).

Z - the series of coins invented for a not existing country, like the not recognized micro-principalities

You can locate on this scale the line where you wish to limit your collection without forgetting that you have the perfect right to buy a nonofficial series because it is beautiful, attracts you or moves you. On the other hand, because the immense majority of the collectors is seeking only the official series, do not buy it with the aim to speculate…
Do not forget that the fundamental difference between two types of series, in addition to the quality of the coins, is the mintage and the guarantee of the issuing institute. One can hope that a state will respect its signature and its engagements, and will not issue more series than planned, whatever the demand. One cannot be sure of the same seriousness coming from private manufacturers, especially insofar as those, generally, do not engage on precise quantities while creating the series. The term “limited quantity” does not mean anything as long as one does not know where the limit is...

Same remark concerning the varieties and errors contained in private series. We already saw it at the time of the ecus and euros of the cities, in France, that covetous manufacturers voluntarily created errors in their coins (spelling mistakes, different metal… no limit to imagination). It should well be checked that the error, if there is an error, is “involuntary” and nonintentional. We should also take care of names being able to mislead badly informed purchasers, such as MDC at the place of FDC, the first meaning “Circulation Coins”, therefore very current coins, the other meaning “Fleur De Coin”, the highest numismatic quality.

To simplify: what we index is official, indisputably. As for the rest, be careful, you can make yourself happy but do not confuse official et private.



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Last update the 21/08/2010
by Joachim Marchandise