old lire

Probably not but the only possible place would be a bank. You can ask. Could be pretty bad. As I remember 15 years ago it was about 1500 lire to the dollar and the dollr was fairly strong at that time. How much do you have? You might consider selling on e-bay. Some people are intersted in buying the out of date currencies. I sold a bunch of old British pounds that way along with some French francs

We have about 18,000 lire. Maybe enough for a coffee?
Seriously, we have no idea how much this is worth but we seldom return with much foreign currency. Thanks

It's not enough to worry about.

Doing some wild guessing. That would have been worth about $10 when the Euro was worth about .80/.85. Today the Euro is worth about 1.35. You may have 5 E which will get you a Starbuck. I will bet you could sell them for more than that on e-bay. Or put them in the scrap book.

For the first few years after the introduction of the Euro pretty much every bank would accept the old national currency and offer an exchange. That grace period is over, only the central banks of the respective country can exchange the money and in most cases only bills and no coins.

So in theory you can take your lire to the Banca d'Italia, the Italian Central Bank. They probably use the exchange rate of January 1, 2002 which was 1 € = 1,936.27 £ . Soooo in theory you can go a branch of the Banca d'Italia, stand in line - and get a bit less than 10 Euro ....

http://www.bancaditalia.it/bancomonete/cambiolire

"You may have 5 E which will get you a Starbuck."

That made me giggle! Of course you know there are no Starbucks in this country! ha!

I didn't see one in Europe until we went up to Prague, actually.

Anyway, back to the OP, I would second the suggestion for eBay, if you want any kind of return on the lire. (Actually, you should search for completed items and see if they actually sell before you do that because I have no idea what the going rate is on there.) Otherwise, I'd hold on to them for the novelty!

Can you donate it to charity? There were some schemes in the UK where charities collected "old" currencies and also collection boxes at airports. Don't know whether they are still running.

As far as I know your lire have only sentimental value. There was a period to convert them to Euro but I expect that is long past.

Sorry Beatrix, I guess it's still inside 10 years. Hard to believe they're accepting them for that long.

Brad,

did you actually check the Italian legislation which btw is quoted on the website (English!!!) I provided in my post??? While the Lira is not legal tender anymore it is accepted for exchange at the Banca d'Italia only for 10 years after it ceased to be legal tender, i.e. till February 29, 2012.

The only question neither the website nor the legislation nor anyone other than the op can answer is if this small amount is worth the hassle or if the op would see the process as a special experience only to be had in Europe ;-)

I presume an Italian bank would charge a transaction fee. It's possible this fee would be more than the value of the old currency. Is there anyone who would willingly subject himself to a bureaucratic and non-routine currency conversion transaction in an Italian bank when this time could be spent being a tourist?

Not trying to be a buzzkill or anything but this question seems to be more academic than anything.

I have bags of old lire, pesos, and francs.

Dorothy,
Beatrix has given you the correct information. You will probably be in a city that has a branch of the bank of Italy and be walking very close to it. See http://www.bancaditalia.it/bancaditalia/organizzazione/filiali/elenco
for locations.

I have done it and there was no charge and no hassle. It took about five minutes.

"Is there anyone who would willingly subject himself to a bureaucratic and non-routine currency conversion transaction in an Italian bank when this time could be spent being a tourist?"

raises hand

uh, me? :D I kind of wish I had some lire now so I could go find a bank and convert them. I love "everyday interactions" especially when I get to practice the language! It's the best way to learn!

and I don't know...it just sounds like fun to me!

Tamara, I am also more into the everyday transactions of all kinds than straight-up tourism. However, we travel with children so hanging around banks and other officious workplaces has drawbacks.

But no kids, lots of time....heck, I say grab your sack of unfinished needlepoint projects and trundle on over to a bank and dump a big bag of nearly valueless miscellaneous pre-Euro currency on the counter. The tellers know a few words of English, too. ;0

I would keep the Lira you have. Stash it in an old jewelry box and then when you are 90 years old, your grandkids will get a kick out of it and think it's really something cool. :-)

Martha