Demonetization

The demonetization consists in removing the facial Valeur of a Banknote, of a Coin or a Timbre-poste. Once demonetized, they cannot be used any more for their use envisaged. This operation, generally organized by the public administrations, is difficult because it requires good information of the public and operations of exchange.

Demonetization of the tickets and coins

Banknotes

Coins

Examples in France

With the passage to the Euro, the coins in frankly are not usable any more for the payments starting from the February 17th 2002, and are not exchanged any more by the Banque de France after the February 17th 2005. They are then démonétisées.

Demonetization of the stamps

Interests in question

The demonetization of the postage stamps or tax interests especially the companies customer of the postal, or indebted administrations of the Enregistrement having constituted an important stock of stamps, for their correspondence or the tax on the acts which they have to emit. It also interests all the philatelists since, once demonetized, the stamps become only collector's items of which the value any more is not supported by their capacity of stamping.

Conditions of the demonetization

In the postal and tax history, the most successful demonetizations were those which left time with the private individuals and the companies to exchange the old stamps against still valid stamps. The postal administration then could exchange with facial value identical or with a depreciation to its profit.

Other demonetizations were unpopular because of the impression of the users whom the stations sought to save of the money to their disadvantage. It was thus the case of the first stamps of benevolence French to surtax, demonetized shortly after their emission. More recently, the post office of the Liechtenstein had to re-examine a project of demonetization whose advertisement had involved a collapse of the incomes of the service philetalic.

It should be noted that the withdrawal of the sale of a stamp is not related to its demonetization: the stamp remains usable on the mail according to its facial value.

The case of France

Demonetizations of revenue stamps

With regard to the French revenue stamps, all the tax proportional ones of the Second Empire and the intermediate period (with star) had been démonétisés starting from July 1st, 1874. More recently, all the revenue stamps made out in francs were démonétisés, unlike the postal stamps, at the time of the passage to the euro, starting from January 1st, 2002 and replaced by stamps made out in the new currency. But then, the revenue stamps in francs still remained exchangeable during 2 years, until December 31st, 2003.

Demonetizations of postage stamps

In France, apart from certain postage stamps commemorative of the Years 1920 (Ronsard, Arts and Trades, Olympic Games), of the stamps of the Sinking fund, some of the first stamps of benevolence to the profit of the the Red Cross and those appearing Philippe Pétain, all the postage stamps emitted since 1849, including the “20 centimes black with the type Cérès”, are still valid to frank the letters. The conditions are to franc respect the passage to new of 1960 and conversion frankly - Euro. Because of their very current facial low value and of their important value as goods of collection, it is not very possible to use the very old French stamps on the current mail.

It had been considered publicly, in 2005, by certain persons in charge of the post office, of démonétiser the whole of the postage stamps in francs, or at least those made out in old francs. These persons in charge reproached indeed the philatelists who continued to free their letters with old stamps in francs to complicate the life of the post-office employees, and often to make pass from the figurines in old francs for stamps in " new francs".
Actually, the Post office feared that the philatelists forsake the new emissions in euro to initially run out enormous stocks of those in francs and cause him an important shortfall consequently.
the philatelists, collectors and traders, expressed their opposition to this measurement, except curiously the president of their federation, and this for three reasons:

La Poste thus reconsidered its promise made in 2000 and 2001, before the passage to the euro, of never démonétiser the stamps made out in francs, in the name of the temporal continuity of the State.
La Poste could not make the philatelists responsible for the ignorance of its agents in postal history and their incapacity to distinguish the facial values in old francs from those formulated in new francs. It is with it that it would for a long time have rested to introduce into their professional training the few hours of courses of philately necessary to recognize itself there.
the spokesperson of the post office planned to operate this demonetization without exchange of the old stamps, which had been a serious act of arbitrary and spoliation.

At all events this project was abandoned in front of the opposition of the philatelists.

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