How to Identify the 10 Markka

Start with the overall look. The modern Finnish 10 markkaa is unmistakably bimetallic: a light, silvery cupronickel ring wrapped around a warm gold-coloured aluminium-bronze centre. If your coin is a single solid colour, it is not this type. The diameter is about 27 mm, it weighs roughly 8.8 g, is about 2 mm thick, and has a plain (smooth) edge.

Check the design on each face. The capercaillie side (shown on the 1994 example) has a large, fan-tailed forest grouse filling the golden centre, with the four-digit year curving above and the words SUOMI FINLAND around the outer ring. The other face shows a big numeral 10 with the word MARKKAA and a rowan-branch ornament — that value side is how you confirm the denomination rather than mistaking it for a lower coin.

Use the legends and date to pin down the type. SUOMI FINLAND identifies the country, and the year (1993 through 2001) identifies the issue within this final markka series. Because there is only one modern bimetallic 10 markkaa design, matching the bird, the two-tone metal, and a date in that range is usually enough for a confident identification.

Watch for look-alikes. Finland's 1 markka and 5 markka coins from the same era are smaller and, importantly, single-metal, so the bimetallic construction alone rules them out. Much older pre-1963 Finnish 10 markkaa coins exist but are one solid metal and bear early 20th-century dates. There is little incentive to counterfeit a low-value modern coin, so authentication is rarely a concern; instead, judge condition and originality — look for sharp feather detail, an unblemished ring/core boundary, and no signs the two metals have loosened.