Disposal of foreign coins

A question about : Disposal of foreign coins

I've been offered several large bags of mixed foreign coin along with a handful of assorted notes. Is there any way I can get these changed? Ideally in the Bristol - Bath - Swindon area or at a London airport, perhaps?

Best answers:

• How about British Airways' "Change for Good" appeal? I think you can hand coins in on BA flights, at Travelex counters at airports, and I think there's an address you can send them to also.
  Sorry - misread note, thought you were looking for someone to give them to rather than a way of changing them. However, if Travelex are helping BA, they may be willing to help other charities????
• I have looked into this as we are having a foreign coin collection for our school PTFA. There is a website Cash4coins, UK based company. This is who we'll be using to get our pounds sterling! They collect over 10kg in weight, and they obviously charge a fee for counting and converting etc. Worth a look.
• Have you looked into Auctioning them ? Either Ebay or the local coin auctioneers.
• Notes can be exchanged but not coins. I'd suggest taking your coins to your local American Express Travel Agent as they collect them and send them off to charity.
• What about coins and notes from EU countries before they joined EU? Can those be changed anywhere??
• keep them for your next trips or here are a few charities that will take em
  https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=for...ient=firefox-a
• Thomas Cook (the one by me at least) takes coins for charity. I have a bag of American change I need to take....
• I found this old thread and tried the above company after receiving the following to my enquiry. They did what they said and although the rate was much lower than the generally advertised holiday money rate I was happy because you cannot get rid of small notes or coins.
  I will not be going back to Turkey for some time and they even paid to exchange Spanish Pesetas from a holiday years ago!
  Dear Sir,
  Thank you for your enquiry. The process is explained on our website and the forms are available to download but I will fill in the gaps for you now.
  The currency (coins or notes) must be sent to us via recorded delivery to ensure safe arrival and we will sign for receipt. Tips on packaging are on the website. All currency is sorted and counted in a secure environment regardless of whether this has been completed by the sender.
  You will receive an email confirmation of receipt upon arrival and a valuation within 3 working days.
  We will make an offer by email to you for the currency which you can accept or the currency can be securely returned to you. Payment is made by bank transfer or Paypal if preferred.
  You do not need to do open an account, you may use us as little or as much as you like. I appreciate that many people have high expectations of what the currency is worth. The value of exchange coins and small denomination notes is low due to the high costs of processing and transportation to the various national banks to exchange them. They cannot be exchanged in the UK as you are aware and have to be repatriated before we can exchange them. A few company's in this field will not make a payment until the coins have been repatriated. We will pay within 5 working days of your acceptance.
  The value of the currency will be substantially lower than the exchange rate you will see at the banks for large notes due to the reason previously mentioned. In addition we may have to stock pile some currencies before it becomes efficient to transport and exchange them.
  Some currency that has not been legal tender in the last 10 years can no longer be exchanged and has a minimal scrap metal value for coins and a novelty or sentimental value for notes. We will still pay the scrap value for these which helps the environment.
  We can make payment to you by bank transfer upon receipt of a confirmation email from you. Alternatively we can return the currency to you by secure mail.
  I hope this answers your questions and that we can be of service to you. If you need further information I will be happy to call you by phone or you may contact me directly on 07947 179 178
  Kind regards
  Andrew Martin
  Account manager
  07947 179 178
  Website and email were also on but had to be removed for posting here.
• I read the details on how to send currency and they do explain that the address is a mail centre.
  C4C Mail Centre, Suite 121
  79 Friar Street
  Worcester
  WR1 2NT
  Please note that this is only a secure postage address and all cash is removed each day to our counting office. Personal callers are welcome to drop sealed packets during normal business hours but exchanges of foreign coins for cash are not possible at this address, it is purely for secure mail to be stored during business hours
• I thought I was making a constructive addition to this with an experience but the replies all have under tones of a personal grudge or mistrust of the firm I used.
  What I got for my money is none of your business and if you want to fly to Spain and take your old coins there you are welcome, I was happy with this option.
• i just used cash 4 coins and I found them ok... my coins were mostly non eurozone stuff and they responded quickly enough and paid up in about 10 days so quicker than i thought they would... so worked ok for me. the coins had no value to me anyway and when i went to a local coin fare they told me to basically bin 'em! so when i got some money for them i was happy.
  can only speak for myself as i dont know anyone else who has used them.
• I just used cash4coins, I had about 1.5kg (about 4 coin bags full) of old coins: lots of small euro coins, a few US coins, some old Slovakian notes and a note from the Dutch Carribean. I got Ј26.73 for them. This is probably quite a bit less than the coins are worth but because I can't change them anyway and they have to sort and sell them I was happy enough. It is free money and my coin jar is no longer jammed up with foreign coins I dunno what to do with. I think some of the charities that collect foreign coins use cash4coins to turn them into GBP. I would use them again it is a low hassle option and they are reliable.
• Hi,
  you can send foreign and obsolete coins and notes to Practical Action
  i cannot post link as i am still a new user, but you can google practical action charity coin recycling to find their webpage.
• And what do charities do with all the junk coins they get?