Coin Encyclopedia
Search and identify coins from around the world — with country, denomination, metal, mint, history, and how to tell them apart.
French Ecu (Louis d'Argent)
France's principal large silver coin of the pre-revolutionary era, bearing the reigning king's portrait, used as the standard silver crown-sized coin for over a century before decimalization.
European
2 Euro Coin
The highest-denomination circulating euro coin, with a silver-colored center inside a gold-colored ring, widely used by member states to issue popular commemorative designs collected across Europe.
European
Chinese Spade Money (Bu Coin)
An early Chinese bronze currency shaped like a miniature farming spade, used across several competing Zhou-era states before round coinage became standardized.
Asian
Philippine 50 Centavos (Commonwealth, 1936)
A special 1936 silver 50-centavo coin marking the establishment of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, issued in two paired-portrait varieties honoring Quezon alongside Murphy or Roosevelt.
Asian
British Crown
Valued at five shillings, the British crown is a large silver (and later cupro-nickel) coin with a production history stretching from Tudor England to modern commemorative issues.
British
Spanish 4 Reales
A mid-value denomination of Spain's traditional real-based coinage, struck for centuries in both Spain and its American colonies.
European
Japanese Wado Kaichin
Japan's earliest officially minted coin, cast in 708 AD in imitation of Tang Chinese cash, with a round shape and square center hole.
Asian
Austrian Levantine Thaler (Maria Theresa Thaler)
A famous silver trade coin bearing the portrait of Empress Maria Theresa, perpetually dated 1780 and restruck for centuries as a trusted trade currency across the Middle East, Arabia, and East Africa.
European
Magnentius Double Centenionalis
A large bronze coin of the usurper Magnentius featuring one of the earliest large Christian Chi-Rho symbols on Roman coinage.
Ancient
Dutch Lion Daalder (Leeuwendaalder)
A silver trade coin of the Dutch Republic showing an armored knight and a rampant lion, exported in vast quantities to the Levant, Russia, and the American colonies.
European
Cuba 4 Pesos Gold Jose Marti
A small gold denomination from Cuba's early republican-era gold coinage, part of a 1915–1916 series (1 through 20 pesos) struck to circulate on par with US gold currency.
Latin American
Austrian Florin (Gulden)
The main silver coin of Austria-Hungary in the second half of the 19th century, used until the krone replaced it in the 1892 monetary reform.
European
Spanish-Philippine 8 Reales Counterstamped Dollar
Spanish colonial 8 reales silver dollar officially countermarked for circulation in the Philippines, a hybrid of Spanish American and Philippine monetary history.
Asian
Colombian 8 Reales (Nueva Granada)
The classic Spanish colonial "piece of eight" struck at the mints of Bogotá and Popayán, continuing in modified form after Colombian independence before decimal reform.
Latin American
Portuguese Real
Portugal's centuries-old pre-decimal currency unit, used from the medieval era until the 1911 introduction of the escudo, also struck for Brazil and other colonies.
European
Japanese Bu / Ichibu-gin (silver bar coin)
Rectangular silver bar-shaped coin used as fixed-value currency in Tokugawa Japan, valued as a fraction of the gold ryo rather than by weight.
Asian
1967 Bobcat Centennial Quarter
A one-year-only Canadian quarter struck for the 1967 Centennial of Confederation, featuring a bobcat on the reverse instead of the usual caribou.
Canadian
Mexican 8 Reales Cap and Rays
The classic silver dollar of independent Mexico, showing a radiant Phrygian liberty cap over mountains, widely trusted and traded across the Americas and Asia for most of the 19th century.
Latin American
Egyptian 10 Piastres (silver)
A workhorse silver coin of Khedival, Sultanate, and Kingdom-era Egypt, one-tenth of a pound and commonly found in worn circulated grades from decades of daily use.
Africa & Oceania
South African Silver Krugerrand
The silver version of the world-famous Krugerrand, launched in 2017 to mark the gold coin's 50th anniversary, using the same Kruger and springbok design.
Bullion
Roman Denarius
The workhorse silver coin of ancient Rome for over four centuries, used across the Republic and Empire and one of the most widely collected categories of ancient coinage today.
Ancient
English Angel
A gold coin depicting the Archangel Michael slaying a dragon, issued for nearly two centuries and later famous for its use as a royal 'touch-piece' for the healing ceremony of the King's Evil.
British
Islamic Silver Dirham (Abbasid)
The standard silver coin of the Abbasid Caliphate, continuing the text-only Kufic script tradition and widely used across a vast medieval trade network stretching from Europe to Central Asia.
Ancient
Ottoman Gold 500 Kurus (Abdulhamid II)
A substantial gold coin struck under Sultan Abdulhamid II, equal to five Ottoman lira, bearing his tughra and used both for circulation and as a store of wealth.
World