diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.2.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.2.txt
index fee98720990e0..5f9ebef4fd546 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.2.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.18.2.txt
@@ -74,3 +74,4 @@ Performance Improvements
 
 Bug Fixes
 ~~~~~~~~~
+- If there is a large numeric value in excel cell of type 'date', convert it to float instead of raising an error  (:issue:`10001`)
diff --git a/pandas/io/excel.py b/pandas/io/excel.py
index 642f322f17fa1..4c26480a0f583 100644
--- a/pandas/io/excel.py
+++ b/pandas/io/excel.py
@@ -329,11 +329,15 @@ def _parse_cell(cell_contents, cell_typ):
                appropriate object"""
 
             if cell_typ == XL_CELL_DATE:
+
                 if xlrd_0_9_3:
                     # Use the newer xlrd datetime handling.
-                    cell_contents = xldate.xldate_as_datetime(cell_contents,
-                                                              epoch1904)
-
+                    try:
+                        cell_contents = \
+                            xldate.xldate_as_datetime(cell_contents,
+                                                      epoch1904)
+                    except OverflowError:
+                        return cell_contents
                     # Excel doesn't distinguish between dates and time,
                     # so we treat dates on the epoch as times only.
                     # Also, Excel supports 1900 and 1904 epochs.
@@ -346,7 +350,11 @@ def _parse_cell(cell_contents, cell_typ):
                                              cell_contents.microsecond)
                 else:
                     # Use the xlrd <= 0.9.2 date handling.
-                    dt = xldate.xldate_as_tuple(cell_contents, epoch1904)
+                    try:
+                        dt = xldate.xldate_as_tuple(cell_contents, epoch1904)
+
+                    except xldate.XLDateTooLarge:
+                        return cell_contents
 
                     if dt[0] < MINYEAR:
                         cell_contents = time(*dt[3:])
diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/data/testdateoverflow.xls b/pandas/io/tests/data/testdateoverflow.xls
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..d63942f1b5f64
Binary files /dev/null and b/pandas/io/tests/data/testdateoverflow.xls differ
diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/data/testdateoverflow.xlsm b/pandas/io/tests/data/testdateoverflow.xlsm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..0207549692e6a
Binary files /dev/null and b/pandas/io/tests/data/testdateoverflow.xlsm differ
diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/data/testdateoverflow.xlsx b/pandas/io/tests/data/testdateoverflow.xlsx
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..15f0e8825339e
Binary files /dev/null and b/pandas/io/tests/data/testdateoverflow.xlsx differ
diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/test_excel.py b/pandas/io/tests/test_excel.py
index 5dd764b471d3f..16905e3559cdb 100644
--- a/pandas/io/tests/test_excel.py
+++ b/pandas/io/tests/test_excel.py
@@ -481,6 +481,16 @@ def test_set_column_names_in_parameter(self):
             tm.assert_frame_equal(xlsdf_no_head, refdf)
             tm.assert_frame_equal(xlsdf_with_head, refdf)
 
+    def test_date_conversion_overflow(self):
+        # GH 10001 : pandas.ExcelFile ignore parse_dates=False
+        refdf = pd.DataFrame([[pd.Timestamp('2016-03-12'), 'Marc Johnson'],
+                              [pd.Timestamp('2016-03-16'), 'Jack Black'],
+                              [1e+20, 'Timothy Brown']],
+                             columns=['DateColWithBigInt', 'StringCol'])
+
+        act_df = self.get_exceldf('testdateoverflow')
+        tm.assert_frame_equal(refdf, act_df)
+
 
 class XlrdTests(ReadingTestsBase):
     """