Monnaie de Paris Faces Criticism from Enthusiastic Collectors
by Sebastian Wieschowski, translated by Maike Meßmann
As athletes around the world prepare to deliver top performances at the Olympic Games, the Monnaie de Paris – France’s prestigious mint – has disqualified itself in the eyes of many collectors for unsporting behaviour. The mint is facing an extreme backlash. What happened?
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A ‘reverse proof’ commemorative issue – this is the coin all 2-euro collectors wanted to have, but even those who paid for it could not get their hands on the coin. Photo: Monnaie de Paris
The reason for the outcry is the recent release of a new 2-euro commemorative coin for the 2024 Olympics. The coin, which features a curved design of the Eiffel Tower, was meant to be a highlight in France’s Olympic coin series, parts of which have already been issued over the past years. Instead, however, the new coin has caused a stir – and now a flood of negative reviews for the success-spoilt Monnaie de Paris.
2-Euro Coins in Every Conceivable Shape – and Colour
The Monnaie de Paris had big plans for its numismatic programme to accompany the Olympic Games, including a wide range of commemorative products:
- In April 2024, the mint issued a total of 4 million coins, which were presented as gifts to French schoolchildren. In addition, rolls with 19.8 million coins of the standard quality uncirculated (UNC) were produced.
- 2 million coins of the higher quality fleur de coin (FDC) were offered at a premium in a total of 8000 specially designed rolls.
- Moreover, 10,000 coincards of BU quality (which is higher than UNC and FDC in France) were issued.
- There is also a proof variety with official partial colouring and a mintage of 20,000 specimens.
- The numismatic highlight was supposed to be a special issue with reverse proof finish – this means that the parts of the design that are normally frosted or polished have been “switched”. With only 4,000 specimens, this 2-euro coin is one of this year’s top rarities.
On 4 June, the collector products dedicated to the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris were supposed to be launched on the website of the Monnaie de Paris. Particularly the reverse proof coin immediately attracted the interest of collectors. Even before the launch, it became clear that only a few of these coins would be available for sale, as the majority of the issues were allocated to an exclusive distribution partner.
The overall verdict: ‘mauvais’ – a scathing judgement for the Monnaie de Paris on the ‘Trustpilot’ consumer review portal.
Launch Time! But Nothing Happened
The rush for the coveted items took an unexpected turn: The start of the sale, scheduled for 9 am, was delayed by several hours. In addition, there were so many interested collectors that the mint’s servers were unable to cope. Many customers who had been waiting to purchase the coins since early morning were left frustrated.
The sale finally started around midday, but it did not take long for all available coins to be sold out. And the lucky few who received order confirmations were disappointed shortly afterwards: Monnaie de Paris announced that due to technical problems many orders had to be cancelled and payments refunded. In the end, only a few customers did receive their coins. They made a really good deal: instead of the issue price of 22 euros, the coin now costs between 200 and 300 euros already.
The unsuccessful launch of the sale caused quite a “shitstorm” on social media and online forums. Disgruntled collectors urged French-speaking Facebook groups to give Monnaie de Paris negative reviews on customer rating sites. This led to a rapid increase in negative reviews on various platforms, including Trustpilot: on 10 June, Monnaie de Paris had an average rating of only 1.6 out of 5 points, with eight in ten customers giving Monnaie de Paris just one star. The overall verdict: ‘mauvais’, bad. And there were even rumours in the Facebook groups that negative reviews had been removed, which only added to the collectors’ annoyance.
Collectors Give Free Rein to Their Anger
What can be read about the Monnaie de Paris in the comments of customer rating sites is unlikely to please those in charge at Quai de Conti in Paris. A coin collector called ‘Sylvain’ says that the coins were not available for sale in the online shop until 10:15 am at the earliest, although sales were supposed to start at 9 am sharp on Tuesday, 4 June: ‘This is where the problems start. You have coins in your cart, but can’t get any further. Bugs, bugs, and even more bugs. After two hours of relentless struggle, I decided to give up – some people have to work, unlike the IT departments at the MDP,’ rants Sylvain. His conclusion: he will not purchase the reverse proof issue, which is now being offered at ‘completely insane prices’ on the secondary market. ‘Speculation instead of customer satisfaction,’ Sylvain sums up and concludes: ‘Rethink your business policy.’
The different varieties of the 2-euro coin for the Olympic Games: reverse proof (top left), fleur de coin in rolls (top right), BU in coincard (bottom left), proof (bottom right) (Photos: Monnaie de Paris
Francis, who is a moderator of the French Facebook group ‘Euros Passion UNC-BU-BE’ and who called for negative reviews of Monnaie de Paris, also left a comment: ‘I had enormous problems on 4 June, the day of the launch of the BE & BU versions [Editor’s note: BE is a French term for proof quality] of the 2-euro coin for the Olympic Games. After several hours, I was finally able to add the coins to my cart and pay by credit card. My card was charged two days later, but surprise surprise: the order was cancelled, and there will be a refund! What a shame! Instead of publishing so much irrelevant rubbish, buy reliable IT and hire maintenance experts!’
Another customer, who calls himself ‘Phil’, is even more blunt: ‘They’re selling products on their website that aren’t available!!!’ That’s the title of his comment, and then it came thick and fast: ‘If the Paris mint was a private company, it would have gone bankrupt long ago. But they don’t care, because they are paid with our taxes and it is we who finance their incompetence and their mistakes. I lost a day trying to order the new 2-euro coins for the Olympic Games. The IT department is lousy and incompetent. The customer service is unavailable. My bank account was charged twice, but no order was registered. Doesn’t even deserve one star!’
The recent fuss surrounding the Monnaie de Paris is raising questions in many online forums not only about the IT of one of the world’s most famous and renowned mints, but also about how customer oriented the mint really is – after all, the nerves and bank accounts of French collectors are already strained. Issuing an extremely rare special issue of a rare proof collector coin, with almost all specimens being sold at a later date via an external distributor, is unlikely to increase the satisfaction of the Monnaie de Paris’s loyal regular customers – as evidenced by various comments on Trustpilot and the like.
Update 18 June: Response by the Monnaie de Paris
In response to this article, the Monnaie de Paris has contacted us and sent us the following statement:
Monnaie de Paris is aware of the problems encountered by its customers on June 4, despite the best efforts of its teams (Ecommerce, Retail, Customer Relationship, Communications & IT teams). We are extremely sorry to hear that some clients were unable to buy the new 2€ in the various versions offered, due to an extremely high customer demand that coin mintage was not able to cover. These products can sell out in just a few hours, and the unprecedent demand for this coin, not seen in the past 6 years, has also caused our website to encounter capacity issue that we were able to fix only in the afternoon. We do sincerely apologize for this inconvenience and are aware that this customer experience has not been as expected by our key clients. We will do our best effort to correct this and ensure to learn from this situation for the future coin releases.
