Recycling obsolete coins?

I just went through some bags of old coins in the attic today, and having bagged up all of the coins that are still useful (i.e. UK, US and Euro coins), I'm left with a bunch of obsolete coins (e.g. Dutch Guilders, Austrian Schillings, etc.).

So, rather than just throw them in the bin, I have a question:

Can I donate them to charity, or give them to the bank to be melted down and reminted, or otherwise do something constructive with them?

I've got around £200 worth of old European notes, any ideas on those?

I know on Qantas flights they have small envelopes for Unicef. The idea is you give them your loose foreign change since you'll no longer use it once you get home.

Not sure about pre-Euro currencies though. I would assume they are still legal tender though.

There are companies that deal with old currency and some charities collect coins and get them sorted in bulk. They can then be exchanged at the national banks for current legal tender.

I can't find any charities off-hand but if you ask at some banks you will likely find one that will take them off you.

Gareth

I don't know, as a collector of old US coins, I would suspect that they may gain in value over the years. As people finish turning in all their old currency, they will gain value on the collectors market.

Geo-caches. Many of them are even devoted to oddball currency "exchanges"!

I posted the same topic on downsizer.net and there's a few replies there too:

http://forum.downsizer.net/viewtopic.php?p=3217#3217

Apparently you can take it in to Oxfam, although I'm unsure what they do with it