Leftover Currency option (including coins)
 

I wanted to share my experience with an option for disposing of leftover currency and coins. It is appropriately named Leftover Currency and operates from the UK. The website provides further information on their services but basically you can either mail coins or do what I did and drop them at an office near Oxford Circus in central London. The office is really just an agent who takes the envelope and forwards it to the company. It is one of the only places I know that will accept coins (most forex offices only take paper money) as well as outdated currency and old coins (i.e. French Francs, German DM, etc.) There is no transaction fee and you can have the money direct deposited to your bank account or paypal account. I have no affiliation with Leftover Currency but enthusiastically endorse.

Of course there is a catch - the exchange rates are not wonderful. So you would not want to exchange large amounts of currency as you could probably get a better rate from a bank or even a forex option. Also if you are outside the UK be advised that the proceeds from the transaction are paid in UK currency so you may incur additional forex conversion fees from paypal or your bank.

By way of example here are the amounts I exchanged and the rates:

• 0.24 US Dollars, current coins: £ 0.15 GBP
• 40 Canadian Dollars, current banknotes: £ 18.60 GBP
• 3 Canadian Dollars, current coins: £ 0.99 GBP
• 362 Chinese Yuan, current banknotes: £ 34.53 GBP
• 300 Czech Koruna, current banknotes: £ 8.08 GBP
• 53 Czech Koruna, current coins: £ 1.04 GBP
• 1.05 Deutsche Marks, obsolete coins: £ 0.27 GBP
• 20 Euro, current banknotes: £ 16.32 GBP
• 0.88 Euro, current coins: £ 0.63 GBP
• 18 French Francs, obsolete coins: £ 0.06 GBP
• 500 Greek Drachma, obsolete banknotes: £ 0.09 GBP
• 370 Hong Kong Dollars, current banknotes: £ 28.33 GBP
• 12 Hong Kong Dollars, current coins: £ 0.61 GBP
• 1.10 Irish Pounds, obsolete coins: £ 0.80 GBP
• 70 Israeli New Shekels, current banknotes: £ 11.59 GBP
• 15.50 Israeli New Shekels, current coins: £ 1.79 GBP
• 570 Japanese Yen, current coins: £ 2.18 GBP
• 9.50 Kuwaiti Dinars, out-of-circulation banknotes: £ 14.77 GBP
• 200 Polish Zlotys, current banknotes: £ 31.34 GBP
• 5.80 Polish Zlotys, current coins: £ 0.72 GBP
• 0.07 British Pounds, current coins: £ 0.06 GBP
• 240 Russian Rubles, current banknotes: £ 2.14 GBP
• 55 Spanish Pesetas, obsolete coins: £ 0.17 GBP
• 1,420 Thai Baht, current banknotes: £ 26.06 GBP
• 20 Thai Baht, current coins: £ 0.23 GBP
• 258 Ukrainian Hryven, current banknotes: £ 4.50 GBP
• 1.25 Barbados Dollars, current coins: £ 0.23 GBP
• 0.09 British Pounds, out-of-circulation coins: £ 0.07 GBP

Some of these were coins that my grandparents gave me many years ago! But many were coins and currency left over from business trips that were not feasible to reconvert due to absurd transaction fees. Accidentally included some current Euros as well.

I have a jar at home full of leftover currencies. Lots of European (pre-Euro) ones. They're just souvenirs at this point. Probably no more than a couple bucks' worth of any single currency and I'm sure I've missed the final convert-to-Euros date on some (all?) of them.

I can see this being useful if I had $20-40 worth of currency. Big enough that it's worth my time to convert; small enough that a no-commission service with a worse rate is okay.

I have leftover $20-40 worth of GBP, EUR, and CAD on purpose - just like to have it for my next trip. Sometimes helpful upon arrival somewhere if an airport transit kiosk won't take a credit card or whatever.

I went to an open house last year, the owners had one of those glass-topped coffee tables. Under the glass were coins and banknotes from all over the world (given how the rest of the house was decorated, it appears they traveled a lot). It was neat.

dump it all into an automated coin machine or automated check out and see how much it takes and rejects. One bank I use has it free for customers

My grandparents gave me a lot of coins from their travels I used to keep them in labeled envelopes. But I realize these have no value to me anymore and no collectible value, so I was happy to dispose of them.

Concur - I decided to keep GBP, EUR, JPN, SIN and MEX. I used to keep them all as I figured I might revisit them and would be happy not to rush to the ATM. But eventually I had a drawer full of ziplocs...

I have never seen a coin machine in the USA that will process old and new coins from 100 countries. Where can I find that? Here we only have coinstar that will take US coins and give you an Amazon GC for 100% of value.

If you know someone going to the place where the currency and coin is used, why not give or sell it to them?

Send it to UNICEF: Change for Good

This. Depending on the airport/airline, some of them will do it for you. For example, in the Bahamas, there is a kiosk (really just a clear container with a coin slot) at the bottom of a set of stairs in the departure area (or was it at the top...)

Cathay used to promote a change for good program on their planes.... Haven't seen it in a while but I haven't rode them in ages.., The FA's would provide you with a small paper envelope and you would dump your old coins there and they would forward it.

https://news.cathaypacific.com/chang...n-2017-203970#

Not all of them. Try and see ;)

In London, several locations have these Fourex kiosks that can perform automatic currency and coin exchange. I've never tried them myself so i cannot say whether the exchange rates are decent.

My credit union has one, but it just rejects anything it doesn't recognize. We use it once a year or so to count up a big jar of mostly U.S. coins. We deposit the U.S. amount into an account and get the foreign coins back. Since we empty that jar about once a year, it's never more than a couple euros and/or a couple loonies.

When I'm at the airport I usually try to use my last bit of local cash at duty-free. I can always use some chocolate and I've yet to find a shop that won't take my coins and the balance on a credit card.

The one time I had some significant cash (Singapore VAT-back program) I used a normal Travelex to get paper, then the coins I followed my above method.

(Edit to avoid duplicate post -- new below)

Last year (I dunno if it's ongoing), AA offered a similar program where they collected any currency including coins and donated it.

I used an automated machine in the ANA lounge in NRT (or it may have been PEK, things blur after a certain point.) I had stray coins from Japan, South Korea and China that were just taking up space in the carry on bag. I dumped them all in along with some bank notes and many dollar bills came out, along with a few local coins to make up the difference. I got an bad exchange rate but I had a bunch of US currency that I'd actually use. Worked for me.

LOL giving advice to dump slugs into a coin slot. The US Treasury would probably not be amused. :p

When I have a small amount of leftover foreign currency-- "small" being up to a few USD worth-- I keep it as a souvenir. It's not worth the effort to change it, and I appreciate the souvenir. Sometimes I give the souvenirs to young relatives to spark a lesson about geography, foreign culture, language, etc.

I've been successful most trips at keeping my leftovers small by shifting my purchases to cash the last day or two of the trip. Of course, if I anticipate needing the currency again in a few months I don't sweat it. In fact it's useful to have local currency in pocket when going back, in case a suitable ATM or money-changer is not available right away upon arrival.