Finding the Value of a Foreign Coin

Great Britain 1/2 crown 1945

When someone comes across a foreign coin, there are usually 2 questions that immediately run through their mind:

• Where is this coin from?
• How much is this coin worth?

We want to know the value of things, whether coins or baseball cards or shoes or cars, so that we can determine a thing's importance (especially compared to other things). If I see a penny on the ground, I know its value is so low that I won't bother to pick it up. A quarter, however, is worth stopping for. If I'm shopping for a car, I want to know the value of the cars that I am looking at so that I can decide if a particular price is a good deal. When the thing is a foreign coin, which we naturally associate with money and value, it is hard not to wonder about how much it is worth.

For a world coin collector, even someone who isn't investing in expensive coins, it can be useful to know the value of a coin:

• It is important to know the approximate value of your coins in order to avoid over- or under-insuring your collection.
• Comparing the values of multiple types of the same coin (different dates or mint-marks) helps you choose the more valuable coin for your collection.
• Knowing the value of a coin can help you make sure you are making equitable trades with other people (though you shouldn't be nit-picky when making trades - trading a 25-cent coin for a 5-cent coin is a good deal if it's a coin that you don't have in your collection).
• For those valuable coins that you do run across, you'll make sure to take better care of them so that they continue to stay valuable.

Book Value versus Market Value

When we talk about the value of something, especially something that is collectible, it is important to know that there are actually 2 different values that we can consider (and that are found in different ways) - its book value, and its market value.

Things (coins, cars, houses) usually don't have a single, fixed "value" or "price" that everyone agrees to. If you go to 3 different grocery stores, you'll probably find 3 different prices for the same items. For things that people commonly collect (like coins, comic books, or baseball cards), some person, group, or company has probably created a "price guide" - a book (or magazine, or Web site) which lists the different items and gives them an estimated value (usually based on a lot of research). A commonly-used price guide for cars is the Kelley Blue Book, for example. When you get the value for something from some kind of a price guide - whether from an actual book or a monthly magazine or  a Web site - it is called the book value.

Book values are useful as estimates (for insurance, or for comparing the estimated values of several coins), but they are usually not what you could actually buy or sell a coin for.

The market value of a thing is what someone would actually pay for it, which can be more than or less than the thing's book value and can change frequently. I may have a coin that a book says is worth $100, but if nobody is willing to give me that much for it, is it really worth $100? Or I may have a coin that a book says is worth 25 cents, but it is very popular right now and I am able to sell it for $1. Finding the market value of a coin is more difficult, and requires you to do some research.  It's also only really useful to know if you want to try to sell a coin (or are checking if a coin you want to buy is a good deal).

Finding the Book Value of a Coin

For foreign and world coins, the main book source of coin values is the Standard Catalog of World Coins, published by Krause Publications. It is currently available in multiple editions (coins from 1601-1700, from 1701-1800, etc.), and is updated annually. These are big books, listing nearly every coin ever made with pictures and the number of coins minted, with estimated values based on the coin's date and condition. Every world coin collector should have one of these. You can find these books at Amazon, or you can check if your local library has a copy.

The nice thing about book values is that you don't need to have the most recent book (or to buy a new book every year) to get a good sense of the value of a coin (or to compare different coins). If coin X is worth more than coin Y in the 2002 edition, that's not likely to have changed in the 2012 edition.

Krause Publications has put their coin value database online at Numismaster.com. For a monthly or yearly subscription fee, you can look up the coin values from their current books online without needing to buy a book. Depending on what you need, it may be a better deal to buy the book or to subscribe to Numismaster.com.

In June, 2011, the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC) released a free World Coin Price Guide Web site based on Krause Publication's coin value data. I don't know if the information is any different than what is available at Numismaster, but I've noticed that it is not as complete as the information I can find in the printed Standard Catalog books (not all the coins are listed, and there are fewer pictures than in the book). If you haven't yet invested in a Standard Catalog of your own, start with the NGC's price guide and see if it is sufficient for what you need.

Finding the Market Value of a Coin

To try to figure out the current market value of a coin, you need to find out what people are willing to pay for that coin. The best way to do that is to see what people have actually paid at auction sites like eBay.com. eBay allows you to search completed auctions, which lets you know how much people actually paid for things. It is unlikely that all the sales were for the same value, so using this method you end up with a market value range - if there were 3 similar coins that sold in the last 30 days, for $1.50, $0.99, and $1.10, you can take the average to arrive at a reasonable current market value for the coin. If you were going to sell the same kind of coin, that would give you a good idea of the price to use.

The difficulty with finding a market value is finding completed auctions. eBay only allows you to search for completed auctions within the last 3 months, so for less common coins you may not find any actual sales.

Trade-In Value

While the market value of a coin gives you a good idea of what you can sell it for, it only applies to selling the coin to another collector (e.g. in person, through the mail, or in an auction).

If you're going to try to sell a coin to a coin dealer (someone who buys and sells coins professionally), then a third value comes into play - what I call the coin's trade-in value. Any coins that a dealer buys from you, they will have to then try to sell to someone else - that is their business. A dealer wants to resell the coin at its current market value, which means that they need to buy it from you at lower than market value (the "trade-in value"). This trade-in value may be anywhere from 25% to 50% less than the market value or book value of the coin. If you take a coin to a dealer and ask for the full market or book value, they are very unlikely to be interested.

The best choice for getting the most for a coin is selling to another collector, either in-person or online. But selling coins this way presents its own set of challenges (fees for selling your coin through an auction site; fees for accepting credit cards; risk of not getting paid; etc.) so it may be easier, though less profitable, to work with a local coin dealer instead.

Exchange Value

See our other post about the exchange value of a foreign coin.


Collecting foreign coins is about enjoying the beauty and variety of the world's money, about glimpsing another culture through an ordinary, every-day object which is very commonplace but is also very important. Foreign coins show us what that country thinks is important enough to honor by immortalizing it in a small sculpture that will be seen by millions of people. While there are collectors who search for only rare or valuable coins, they are missing out on the thousands of other interesting coins that make world coin collecting fun. For that reason, I don't recommend that you focus too much on how much coins are worth. Most modern world coins are minted in the millions, and are going to be neither rare nor valuable. The excitement comes from finding a coin that isn't already in your collection, that fills a hole or completes a set and gives you a sense of building something. If the coin happens to be worth something, then that's an added bonus, something that you can showcase as part of your ever-growing collection.

Insuring Your Coin Collection

1945 Mexico 2-peso gold coin

This month we have a special guest writer, Carrie Van Brunt-Wiley of InsuranceSolutionsPlus.com.

Options for Insuring Your Coin Collection

If a natural disaster struck in your community, would your coin collection be covered against a loss? Or if a burglar were to target your property, do you know that your collection is insured up to its full value?

These are scenarios we don’t want to think about, however, they are risks any collector should consider.

Recently an avid collector in Virginia found out the answer to one of these questions the hard way. The collector, whom we shall call James, was the victim of a home burglary. Amongst some of his stolen property was his collection of foreign and domestic coins. James had looked into insurance for his collection a few years prior, and at the time was satisfied with the limited coverage provided under his existing homeowners policy. However, over the years James’ collection had increased in value and when it came time to file a homeowners insurance claim for the theft, he found out the sad truth. His homeowners insurance policy didn’t cover even a sixth of the value of his collection.

This type of situation isn't uncommon however it's also easy to avoid.

Get the right coverage

As mentioned above, most homeowners insurance policies will provide coverage for a collection such as a coin collection, however, the coverage limit is often very low. For example, most home insurance policies place a maximum coverage limit of $200 on items such as coins, bank notes and gold bullion. This means that in the event of a loss, your policy would only pay out $200 towards the replacement of any (or all) of these items kept in your home.

A better option is to schedule an endorsement (also called a 'rider') on your homeowners insurance policy that extends the coverage limit for your collection. You will need to discuss this with your home insurance carrier and they will ask you to supply an appraisal from an official coin appraiser. Always make sure your collection is insured up to it’s full value, especially if you are regularly adding new coins.

Finally, one of the best ways to insure your coin collection is to purchase a coin collection insurance policy from an insurer that specializes in this type of coverage. This policy, oftentimes referred to as a 'personal articles floater' is completely separate from your homeowners policy and will oftentimes offer extended protection not offered under a home insurance policy. For example, a coin collection insurance policy will usually cover theft of your collection while you are traveling to a coin show.

Do Your Part

Aside from having the right insurance policy in place, take steps to avoid theft and/or damage to your coins by keeping them locked up in an inconspicuous place in your home. Don’t advertise your collection to people you don’t know well. Keep a record of every coin in your collection so that you have proof of inventory and ownership.

Reading Japanese Numbers and Dates

Japan 1945 10-sen

As I've previously discussed, it is useful for a world coin collector to be able to read numbers and dates in different languages. This allows you to determine the proper date and denomination of a coin. That information, along with the coin's country, is the minimum you'd need to look up the coin in a guide, check if it's in your collection, or trade with another collector.

The Chinese Numerals

Japanese is one such language which doesn't use Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2...). Japanese uses a number-writing system that is shared with the Chinese language, and is generally referred to as the Chinese numerals.  The symbols used to represent 0 through 10 are pictured below, with their European/Arabic equivalent:

Japanese numbers 0 through 10

Numbers above (and including) 10 are not made by combining individual digits, like in the Arabic numeral system. Instead, Japanese uses combinations of numerals which add and/or multiply to the number being written. For example, 11 is not written 一一 (1 1) - it is 十一 (10 1, or 10 + 1). 15 is written as 十五 (10 + 5). 20 is 二十 (2 10, or 2 * 10), and 22 is 二十二 (2 10 2, or 2 * 10 + 2).

There are additional Japanese symbols for larger multiples of 10:
   100: 百
   1000: 千

The Japanese number-writing system is known as a non-positional numeral system because individual symbols don't identify their value strictly based on their position in the number. For example, 40 (四十, 4 10), 400 (四百, 4 100), and 4000 (四千, 4 1000) all use exactly 2 symbols in Japanese (while the Arabic numbers 40, 400, and 4000 use 2, 3, and 4 respectively). The position of a symbol doesn't define its value; its effect on or by its neighbors does.

More examples of Japanese numbers:
   32: 三十二
   44: 四十四
   78: 七十八
   99: 九十九

Japanese Dates

In the late 1800s, Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar, but with a starting date (a "year zero") that corresponded to the Gregorian calendar's year 660 BC, making Japan's year values larger than the year used by other countries (i.e. 1920 A.D. = 2580 Japan). This practice largely stopped after World War 2, and for most purposes Japan uses the same year as America would use.

Modern Japanese coins, however, use the Japanese era calendar to indicate when a coin was minted. An era starts counting years at 1 with each new Japanese emperor. The date is indicated by the emperor's era name (using its Kanji symbols) followed by the year of the emperor's reign. For example, 1989 was the first year for the current Heisei era (under Emperor Kinjo, or Akihito), so coins minted that year would contain the symbol for the Heisei era (平成)  and the symbol for 1 (一).

Japan's era name examples

Fortunately for those who don't read Japanese, there have only been 4 Japanese eras since 1900:

• 明治 (Meiji) 1867 - 1912
• 大正 (Taisho) 1912 - 1926
• 昭和 (Showa) 1926 - 1989
• 平成 (Heisei) 1989 - present

On Japanese coins, the date is usually read clockwise (right-to-left). It begins with the symbols for the era name (see the list above), followed by the era year, and ends with the symbol for year (年). While most coins are read right-to-left, some need to be read left-to-right (counter-clockwise). The symbol for year (年) is always at the end of the date, so if you see it at the left-hand end of a number, read it from right-to-left; if you see it at the right-hand end, read it left-to-right.

Examples from actual Japanese coins:

Left to right: 1921 10-sen, 1942 10-sen, 1995 5-yen, 1974 10-yen

From left to right:

• Taisho year 10 - read clockwise
• Showa year 17 (10 + 7) - read clockwise
• Heisei year 7 - read counter-clockwise
• Showa year 49 (4 * 10 + 9) - read left-to-right 

Showa year 48 100-yen Japanese coin

On recent 50- and 100-yen coins (since 1967), the era year is shown in Arabic numerals instead of Japanese numerals, like the coin pictured here. The rest of the date is read the same way described above - counter-clockwise, starting with the era name and ending with the year symbol (年).







Calculating the Gregorian Date

Once you know the era name and year, you can calculate the Gregorian year using the era table above. Take the era's starting year, add the era year, and subtract 1. For example, Heisei year 3 would correspond to 1991 (year 1 is 1989, year 2 is 1990, and year 3 is 1991). Here are the dates for the coins pictured above:

• Taisho year 10 = 1912 + 10 -1 = 1921
• Showa year 17 = 1926 + 17 - 1 = 1942
• Heisei year 7 = 1989 + 7 - 1 = 1995
• Showa year 49 = 1926 + 49 - 1 = 1974
• Showa year 48 = 1926 + 48 - 1 = 1973

Taiwan 1972 1-yuan (year 61)

Comparison to Taiwan Coins

Coins from Taiwan use the same number symbols as Japanese coins, so it is easy to mistake them for each other. In the coin pictured here, the year reads 6 10 1 (61, in yellow highlighting) reading counter-clockwise and ending with the year symbol (年). Taiwan coins will of course not have one of the 4 Japanese emperor era names listed above, and frequently have the flower symbol shown here.

World Christmas Coins

As the weather turns slowly colder here in the Pacific Northwest, many people's thoughts here and throughout the world start turning to the upcoming holiday season.

A majority of the countries in the world celebrate Christmas. Whether as a religious holiday or a secular celebration of family and friends, Christmas time is an important time of year for millions of people worldwide.

Isle of Man 2009 50p Christmas Coin
(Image from the Isle of Man Post Office.)

To celebrate the season, a few countries have issued Christmas-themed coins over the years.

The Isle of Man has issued a Christmas 50-cent piece nearly every year since 1980. They are currently in the middle of a 12 Days of Christmas coin series (the "5 golden rings" coin is shown here), but other annual Christmas coins have had images of Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and various scenes of holiday festivities and decorations.

Gibraltar has also issued Christmas-themed 50-cent coins most years since 1990. Many of their annual coins have an image of Santa Claus, but the three wise men, a Christmas tree, and other Christmas imagery make an appearance.

The Kingdom of Tonga, in the South Pacific, issued Christmas-themed 1-pa'anga coins in limited quantities in the 1980's. Numista has a picture of the 1982 1 pa'anga coin.

And Latvia's 2009 1 lats coin has a Christmas tree with ornaments on its reverse.

Niue Island 2010 $1 Christmas coin.
(Image from the Mint of Poland.)

Collectible coins are special, limited-mintage coins that are usually much more ornate (and frequently minted in precious metals or in unique shapes). They are usually sold directly from a mint (or an authorized reseller/distributor) - they are definitely not something you're going to find in pocket change.

In 2010 Niue, a small island country near New Zealand, released $1 silver (yes, made of silver), $2 silver, and $5 gold star-shaped Christmas coins. The Christmas tree on the reverse of the $1 coin has 3 colored crystal ornaments on it, and the $2 coin has a colored crystal "star". These coins would look wonderful hanging on a Christmas tree as ornaments, but don't even think about drilling a hole through them to add a wire ornament hook.

Australia 2012 $1 Christmas Coin.
(Image from the Perth Mint.)

The Perth Mint, which makes collectible coins for Australia and other countries, traditionally issues a new Australian $1 Christmas-themed coin every year. These coins aren't made of sliver or gold, but they do feature colorized accents on the reverse.

Canada 2012 50-cent Christmas coin.
(Image from the Royal Canadian Mint.

Finally, the Royal Canadian Mint usually issues a couple of holiday-themed coins every year.  This year they have a colorized 50-cent coin with a lenticular image (changes when you change the viewing angle) of Santa leaving presents under a Christmas tree, a $20 silver coin depicting the three wise men with a crystal star on the back, and a $10 silver coin with a color ice-skating scene, among others.


These coins can make nice gifts for coin collectors and non-collectors alike, and I bet kids would enjoy a coin with a picture of Santa Claus on it. Fortunately you can order Canada's coins directly from the Mint's Web site. Any of the others are going to be harder to find.

Christmas coins are few and far between, considering how many people worldwide celebrate Christmas. As usual, if you know of any coins or countries that I've missed, mention them in the comments so we can all benefit.

Update 11/12/2012: Added Perth Mint/Australia.