Over a period of some years I have received in change from our local merchants some Canadian coins of various denominations.
Is there a place in town where I could exchange these coins for American money? - M.E.S., Murray.As far as we know, not one foreign exchange office in Utah will buy foreign coins. And very few elsewhere will.
It doesn't matter whether they're Candian coins, French francs, Belgian francs, Swiss francs, Mexican pesos, etc.
Reasons vary, depending on who you talk to.
One person said it's not cost effective to exchange coins because it's expensive to ship them back to the country from whence they came.
Said another person: "We only buy what we can sell and we can't resell coins. People want paper money."
Not even the office of the Canadian Consulate General in San Francisco had any advice.
It referred us to a foreign exchange office in Bay Area that, you guessed it, does not buy foreign coins
It looks like you're stuck with them unless you can convince yourself to try some of the following creative strategies:
- Pass them off at the local merchants that passed them off to you in the first place.
- Try them in a parking meter, cigarette machine or vending machine.
- Spend your vacation this summer in the state of Washington and sell them there. Worth the trip, don't you think?