Talk:Coins of the Romanian leu

Date of withdrawal/lapse of 1952-1966 coins

The date of withdrawal/lapse of some coins was recently updated in the article by User:Laurentiu Popa. The coins in the 1952/1960/1966 series are mentioned to be withdrawn at 1 January 1997, the date of lapse being mentioned as 16 January 1997. According to the act regarding the withdrawal of these coins, there were several phases:

• 1-15 December 1996: the coins were accepted by all merchants, but they should deposit them in banks, not put them back in circulation
• 16-31 December 1996: the coins were accepted only by banks and postal units, which should deposit them at the National Bank of Romania
• Until 16 January 1997: all the coins received by banks should have been transferred to the National Bank of Romania

In the Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics/Style/Currency article page, the date of withdrawal and the date of lapse are defined as follows:

• Column #5c: Date of withdrawal. This is the date when the coin was withdrawn from circulation by law, acceptance is no longer obligatory in public cash flow. However, in most cases withdrawn coins still can be exchanged to current money in banks.
• Column #5d: Date of lapse. After this date neither commercial banks nor the central bank is obligated to exchange the withdrawn coin to current.

According to my understanding, the date of withdrawal in this case was 16 December 1996, since the acceptance was no longer obligatory after this date. Laurentiu (and others), what do you think about this? Razvan Socol (talk) 06:23, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Until 31 December 1996 the coins would still be accepted as payment or deposits. Between 1-15 January 1997, only banks would accept them. Anyway, most of the coins were already out of the current use. I believe that should be noted, so that some people would not understand that those coins were still in Romanians' pockets in November 1996.Laurentiu Popa (talk) 15:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Laurentiu, the way I read it is: between 16-31 December 1996 the coins were not accepted as payment by merchants (only by the postal units and banks) and after 1 January 1997 they were not accepted even by banks from the population or from merchants (only the National Bank accepted the coins from the banks and postal units). Indeed, those coins were not in current use for several years before this withdrawal, due to the fast inflation at that time. Razvan Socol (talk) 06:00, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

So, until 1 January 1997, the coins would be accepted at banks at face value. The public lost their face value that day. Between 1-15 January 1997, their face value would mean something just for the commercial banks and National Banks.Laurentiu Popa (talk) 07:27, 14 November 2016 (UTC)