URBANA – Everybody has seen them.

You try to put a coin into a vending machine or toss a coin into the quarter-ante poker pot. But the machines and the other players at the poker table reject the coins. You put a coin into an Urbana parking meter and don't get any time on the meter.

The probable problem is that it is a foreign coin and, most likely, a Canadian coin.

Urbana's parking meter staff collects the coins and then sells them. They are currently offering Canadian coins with a face value of roughly $800 for sale by auction.

"With the university, we have all kinds of foreign coins," said Delora Siebrecht, parking administrator for Urbana. "We have pesos. We have Canadian coins. We get all kinds."

The foreign coins are kicked out in the counting machines, she said. Neither banks nor currency exchanges will take them, she said.

So the city auctions the Canadian coins and sells the other foreign coins by the pound, Siebrecht said. Those interested in the current auction should submit a written bid to the Urbana Finance Department, 400 S. Vine St., by Feb. 19.

The Canadian coins come in various denominations – dollars, quarters, dimes. The most common is the Canadian quarter, she said. The last Urbana auction of Canadian coins brought $656 for coins with a then-current face value of more than $1,300 in August 2005, she said.

Gary Dayton, owner of Specialty Stamp and Coin, 7 Taylor St., C, said a Canadian dollar is now worth about the same as the U.S. dollar.

"The Canadian dollar used to be worth 60 cents on the U.S. dollar," Dayton said. "But you can't redeem any foreign coins at any bank."

Dayton, who has been in business since 1978, said Busey Bank used to bring in foreign coins, mostly Canadian.

"I had a little box on my counter," he said. "I put them in there and people could look through them."

People, including those who have been to other countries on trips, still occasionally come into his shop with foreign coins, including some older European coins that have been replaced by euros, he said.

"I haven't bought them for a while," Dayton said.

Dayton said the city of Urbana does own one coin that collectors would covet. When the old Urbana City Hall was built in 1893, somebody put an 1893 silver dollar in the cornerstone. When that was torn down, the coin was discovered, he said.

Karla Anderson, manager at Quick Cash Currency Exchange, 1004 W. University Ave., said that business doesn't take any foreign coins either.

"Our banks would charge us," Anderson said. "It's an outrageous fee."