o the coins are technically still in my wallet, just under a different address? I'll have to look in my wallet when I get the chance. See if I can get it all squared away.
Thanks to those that replied.
Go into the console and type "
listaddressgroupings" (after unlocking the wallet). That will show you your full balance with a breakdown by each address - in other words, you'll see all the change addresses that the wallet is currently using.
b.t.w. The first time I got caught out with this change address stuff - a couple of years ago when I first started trading bitcoin - it gave me a complete heart attack because I checked the balances on blockchain.info and saw that most of my funds were gone. I thought I had been robbed.
After that, I always sent the funds back to the "main address" OR created paper wallets for the change addresses. If you've got significant amounts parked at any address I would always at least create a paper wallet using "
dumpprivkey" in addition to whatever backups of the wallet.dat you have. Keeps you conscious of things.
I did the same thing, with Litecoin, when I first started! Freaked me out thinking that all my coins got stolen! Now I always reuse an existing address for change.