My grandmother just gave me a ziploc baggie full of old French Francs.
 About 500F total.

If I schlepped them to France with me next week, how many Euro's could
I get?  And would I have to make this conversion at a bank, or would
merchants likely accept this obsolete currency?

Dear Team Ramrod, 

Old French notes can only be exchanged at the Banque de France (the
coins could not be exchaged since January this year).

Banque de France - contact details and address
http://www.banque-france.fr/fr/contact.htm 

One Euro is the equivalent of 6.55 old French Francs, which means that
you'll get 76.92 EUR in the exchage. You cannot use them as a valid
currency in shops.

I hope this answered your question. Please contact me if you need any
clarification on this answer before you rate it. My search term has
been "old french francs".

Thanks for quick and thorough answer.

As a regular visitor to France (from the UK) I can tell you that
merchants will not accept francs (coin or note).

Advice is available to US citizens (I assume you are enquiring from
the USA) on the  Embassy of France website in the US:
" Any customer with old French banknotes may:

- send his French banknotes before 17/02/2012 for current series of
banknotes by registered mail to : Banque de France, Caisse Générale,
Service 18, 10 Boulevard Duclaux, 63407 Chamalières Cedex - France to
exchange against euro baknotes if the amount is less than up to
5000EUR.
The amount will be rounded at the lower 5EUR unit and a postal fee may
be charged according to the amount and to the destination country.
Coins are not allowed.

No international legislation has been written concerning the exchange
of old currencies into euros or other currencies in a non-Euro zone
country after January 1, 2002.
In the U.S., while some banks and exchange offices said they would
change French francs to dollars until a not-yet-decided date in 2002,
others mentioned that they would not accept francs after January 1. If
they do accept francs, banks will be able to change banknotes but not
coins. "
[ http://www.info-france-usa.org/atoz/euro.asp#8 ] Accessed 30.Apr05

If you have a bag of coins, before you throw them away check if any of
your local charities take them (some charities in the UK take any
foreign coins, apparently they can raise funds in some way from them).

In addition you may like to look through the coins and check if there
are any rarities present (although if they have been clinking in a bag
together that would badly affect their value) try for example
http://www.cgb.fr/monnaies/modernes/indexgb.html which is a French
coin collecting website - I am sure there are lots more.

Enjoy your trip.

I would also say try eBay.  Some people might just like to have them
as historical keepsakes without their having special numismatic value.
 There is absolutely no telling what something might be worth to a
hobbyist collector; my son just sold an improbable item on eBay for
more than 10x what he thought he might get for it.  I estimate it was
about 100x what the item originally cost.

Archae0pteryx

Thank you for the rating!

Hi
I sent 1,850 french francs to the address listed on 7th April 2005 and
have received NOTHING yet. Can you give me a telephone number of this
Banque De France Branch? It is NOT in the French yellow pages.
Is this a scam? It was sent registered post from the UK but they can't
validate deliveries in France as they do not have a reciprical
agreement to do so.
Help

Flip Top, 

No, it is not a scam, it is the official Bank of France. However, you
had have to arrive there yourself. In any case, if you had asked a
question here yourself, I might have been able to tell you if there's
a way to exchage the money in the UK.