Find The Value Of Old Coins

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Coin collecting has been described as the "hobby of kings." People collect coins for fun, for short-time gain from quick resale, or for a long-term investment. Regardless of your reason for collecting, knowing how to find the value of old coins is a helpful skill, whether you're seeking to make money or just to learn how to take care of your collection. The following steps tell you what you need to know.

Steps

Factors Determining a Coin's Value

  1. Look at the date on the coin. In general, the older the coin is, the more it will be worth.
    • Not all coins have dates on them. Modern dating for European coins dates back only to the early 17th century.
    • Among coins that display dates, not all those dates are according to the Gregorian calendar. Israel and India each follow different calendars, and much of the Arab world uses the Islamic calendar. If your coin comes from a country that uses a calendar other than the Gregorian calendar, you'll need to use a date converter such as that at CalendarHome.com to find the equivalent Gregorian year.
    • Also, be aware that not all coins are minted during the years they display. American silver dollars showing an 1804 date were actually minted in 1834 and 1835 as proof coins, while silver dollars minted in 1804 actually show an 1803 date because the dies were still good.
  2. Know the country of issue. Which country issued the coin can have an impact on the coin's value, depending on how prominent the country was historically or how able it was to mint coins. Many countries display the name of the country on either the obverse (heads) or reverse (tails). Although the country name may be in the country's native language or in Latin, or in an alphabet other than the Roman alphabet.
    • You can look up a country's local name at Nations Online to find the name it's known by in English. (The site displays names only in the Roman alphabet, however)
  3. Note how rare the coin is. The rarity of a coin also determines the coin's collector value, in many cases more than the age of the coin itself. A coin's rarity depends on several related factors:
    • How many of the coins were produced to begin with? The 1914D ("D" for Denver Mint) Lincoln penny is a sought-after coin because only 1,193,000 of them were minted. Proof coins are similarly rare because only a small quantity of them need to be made to test the dies. Only 6 examples of the 1930 Australian proof penny exist today; the total number produced was probably not much greater.
    • Where was the coin minted? While certain mints produce coins for general circulation, other mints may produce only commemorative coins or be in existence for convenience. The Carson City, Nevada mint was established in 1870 to be near the silver produced in Nevada's mines and ceased operation in 1893, when the mines stopped producing silver in quantity. It produced fewer coins than the other U.S. mints, reaching a maximum of 2,212,000 Morgan silver dollars in 1878.
    • Has the coin's design changed? In its first year of production, 1913, the design on the reverse of the Indian Head (Buffalo) nickel changed from showing the buffalo on a raised mound to depicting it on a recessed line of prairie grass. Fewer of the recessed line coin were produced that year so they are more valuable than those with the raised mound, even though the recessed line design was used during the rest of the coin's 25-year production run.
    • Has the coin's composition changed? The 1943 Lincoln penny was minted with steel because copper was in short supply due to World War II; the pennies of the following 2 years were made from spent shell casings. (A few 1944 pennies were supposedly minted from steel but never placed into circulation.) The United States abandoned silver coinage in 1965 because of the rise in the price of silver, replacing silver dimes, quarters, and half-dollars with copper-nickel clad coins, although some silver-clad half-dollar and dollar coins were produced in the 1960s and 1970s.
    • Has the coin been recalled? A coin may be recalled if it was produced in error, like the 1913 Liberty Head nickel; only 5 of which are known to exist. It may also have been recalled for other reasons, such as when the United States recalled gold coins from circulation and melted them down.
    • Does the coin display minting errors? Generally, coins with striking errors, such as the die striking the coin planchet off-center or incompletely transferring the coin design, are weeded out by inspectors and destroyed, but some are released into circulation anyway. These error coins are prized by some collectors.
  4. Observe the demand for the coin. Related to a coin's rarity is how interested collectors are in the coin. As noted above for the 1913 Indian Head nickel, even though such nickels produced from 1914 to 1938 bear the recessed line design, making the raised mound design rarer overall, collectors are more interested in the 1913 recessed line nickel because fewer nickels of that design were produced in that year.
    • Demand for a given coin can also vary according to where in the world a given coin collector lives or vary over time as the coin's popularity with collectors varies.
  5. Examine the coin's condition. The shape a coin is in affects its value; the better it looks, the more a collector is willing to pay for it. Coin condition is graded in one of two ways, by the Sheldon Scale or by standard descriptive adjectives.
    • The Sheldon Scale grades coins from one to 70, with one being the lowest grade and 70 the highest. Although it is used worldwide, some coin experts prefer the use of descriptive adjectives.
    • Descriptive adjectives range from the lowest grade of "Poor" to the highest grade of "Mint State," with intermediate grades ascending from "Fair" to "About Good," "Good," "Very Good," "Fine," "Very Fine," "Extremely Fine," and "About/Almost Uncirculated." The step from Poor to Fair on the Sheldon Scale is small, one to two, while Good ranks no higher than six, Fine no higher than 15, and Very Fine no higher than 35.

Ways to Find a Coin's Value

  1. Consult a coin catalog. In addition to helping you identify old coins, many coin catalogs list values for the coins they display. You will need to consult as current a catalog as you can find, as the values will change from year to year.
    • A good reference for U.S. coins is R.S. Yeoman's "A Guide Book of United States Coins," popularly known as the "Red Book" for its cover.
    • A good reference for world coins is Krause's Standard Catalog of World Coins.
  2. Have the coin appraised by a certified appraiser. Certain numismatists (coin collectors) have been formally trained in how to evaluate coins to determine their conditions and values. You can find these appraisers by contacting a local coin dealer, using the directories of the Professional Numismatist's Guild or the Professional Currency Dealer Association, or using the websites of the American Society of Appraisers (ASA) or the International Society of Appraisers (ISA).
    • Familiarize yourself with the terms an appraisers' group uses for its membership. The ISA divides its membership into members, who are credentialed appraisers, and associate members, who are not. Members are further subdivided by their level of training and experience, with certified members ranking higher than accredited members.
    • You can expect to pay a fee for an appraiser's services.

Tips

  • Coins that grade at Poor or are too damaged to be graded can still have a "basal" value according to their metal content. To find this value, multiply the weight of the coin by the percentage of its most valuable metal by the current price of that metal. (You'll likely have to convert the coin's weight into troy ounces.)
  • To learn more about coin collecting, you can read books such as "Fell's Official Know-It-All Guide: Coins" or visit the FAQ site of the American Numismatic Association.

Warnings

  • Be aware that the listed or appraised value of a coin, its "book" value, is not necessarily how much money you'll make if you sell the coin. In many cases, someone looking to buy your coin intends to sell it to someone else for a profit.
  • Be aware that some less-rare coins have been doctored to resemble rarer coins. Counterfeits of the 1914D Lincoln penny have been made by adding a "D" mint mark to 1914 pennies made in Philadelphia (which didn't use a mint mark at the time) or by shaving the first "4" in a 1944D Lincoln penny to make it look like a "1." You can spot the counterfeit by looking for the initials "VDB" (for designer Victor David Brenner) on the coin. If they're present, the coin is not a genuine 1914D Lincoln penny.

Things You'll Need

  • Coin catalog
  • Magnifying glass or lens (optional)

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Sources and Citations

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