Where is the coin from

It was my turn after L's and my writing session at La Noisette to pay for our moccachino and hot chocolate.

I had a plastic baggie full of change that I dumped on the counter to settle the 6.40 Euro bill. Laurent, the owner, is often short of change especially the 10, 20, 50 centimes pieces. He started pulling out coins, but rejecting some saying, "this is Swiss,  this is Swiss, this is Swiss, this is English."

After we'd settled up, he showed us a coin someone had left. "Belgie?" That's not a country.

We guessed it was Belgian, and maybe the language was Flamand since the country is bi-lingual and perhaps it dated back to pre-1995 when the Euro was adopted. Of course, La Noisette wasn't in business in 1995.

"Look on the Internet," I suggested.

Laurent went to the computer and sure enough we located the coin. As for it being a collector's item?

The value is now 10 centimes.

When the Euro went into effect, it made my life easier. I was traveling often to France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and the UK from Switzerland and kept a money jar with all the different monies.

Before each trip I'd pull out the left over currency from and to my destination country. There was the transition period where I managed to get rid of all the money, but there was one bill I kept because I liked it. It was the 50 Franc bill with Le Petit Prince. Any country that puts a writer on its currency can't be all bad.