Yann-Noël Hénon, discovered of a researcher-collector-sharing billetophile

How did you impassion yourselves for banknotes and why?

When I go back to further in my memory, I remember the wallet of my father filled with Banknotes of 500 francs Pascal. It is my first memory of a Banknote of Banque de France. Then these were the 50 Racine francs, of which I tell the story in my first delivers “a Collector. A Banknote” published last year. But it is the passage to the euro which was the detonator of my passion for the old French Banknotes. In spring 2002, I understood, perhaps a little tardily, that we had had in hand the most beautiful Banknotes of the world!

How much banknotes do you have and from which do they come?

At the end of 2012, is 10 years after having started to collect, my collection comprised approximately 1200 Banknotes (Paper money, Banque de France and Trésor). In January 2013, I decided to sell part of this collection. I preserved only Banknotes of the Treasury and most of the Banknotes illustrating the new book, “the emergency Banknotes of 1940”, which does not represent any more that a few hundreds of labels approximately, I did not take into account very precisely the doubles. With regard to their source, all these cuts come from purchases carried out either on sites of sale like yours or other merchants, or of eBay, of Delcampe, private individuals, living rooms numismatics or of secondhand trades!

Which is your speciality and/or your area of predilection?

My speciality is known many collectors and relates to primarily all the French Banknotes of the Second World War, to find on my site FBOW (www.frenchbanknotesofwar.com).

You have just published a catalog on the emergency Banknotes of 1940, you can us
in saying more?

Simultaneously with my research on the Banknotes of the Treasury and war, I was interested in the local Banknotes issued between May and July 1940. I began a pointing automatically in 2013. To date, this one comprises 4,512 references. In May 2015, I buy by curiosity on eBay France a Banknote of 100 francs “Town of Paris” Type 1940 (Reference: DRUNK 72.1 in the book). This Banknote, which is completely unknown in the works of my predecessors, becomes the spark which starts the design of the book.

You animate the site “French Banknotes of War”, why the choice of the language of
Shakespeare?

The initial goal of this site was above all touching more a large number of collectors and beyond our borders. Today, I am contacted besides by more foreign collectors than French. For the latter and contrary with appearances, the site is quite bilingual! The headings “News” and “Articles” are at the same time in English and French. Most of the articles are certainly written initially in English, but some are translated and published into French with format pdf.

Which are the Banknotes of which you are more to trust?

It is difficult to answer this question. Concerning the Banknotes of 1940, those are henceforth joined together in a single work and forms nothing any more but one “all”. It is thus now the unit which makes my pride, even if the 100 francs “Town of Paris” Type 1940 can be regarded as the engine!

Is this passion expensive?

Yes! In any case at the beginning. When I started, I bought any azimuth, like a “death of hunger”… But extremely fortunately, I had defined my objectives well: Banknotes of the Treasury initially, because few collectors were interested in it and the Banknotes of Banque de France then. I had also made the choice of the beautiful quality, i.e. starting from state SUP. My model of collector was Leon Pernoud. I unfortunately sometimes bought very expensive Banknotes and of which states
corresponded at all to posted quality. I was thus often made have because I was initial and that I had not seen and had not yet handled enormously Banknotes. At the beginning of the years 2000, I especially was likely to know the beginnings of Internet. We were not yet numerous to drive out the good deals which were very frequent and exciting.

Which councils would you give a beginner?

What I can say in what relates to me, it is that I remained isolated too long with my passion. I think that I would have had to be registered as of the beginning within a numismatic association, in order to profit from the support and more tested benevolence from billetophiles. But is with each collector to decide on its way of collection, then it is not easy to give councils. This is why, I wanted to create site FBOW, in order to transmit my experiment and the result of my personal research. Today, as researcher-collector-sharing, I live my passion fully: I regularly write articles and talks for the Club Auvergne Papier-Monnaie of Chamalières, of which I am one of the members.

Thank you.