Coin Encyclopedia
Search and identify coins from around the world — with country, denomination, metal, mint, history, and how to tell them apart.
Argentine Argentino Gold (5 Pesos)
Argentina's principal 19th-century gold coin, worth 5 pesos oro and called an "Argentino," struck to Latin Monetary Union weight standards for use in international trade.
Latin American
Peru 8 Reales (Lima Mint)
The flagship silver dollar-size coin of colonial and early republican Peru, struck at the historic Lima mint from cob and pillar types through crowned-shield busts.
Latin American
Straits Settlements Silver Dollar
A large British colonial silver dollar struck for Singapore, Penang, and Malacca, created to give the Straits Settlements a standardized coin after decades of competing foreign trade dollars.
Asian
Guinea
Historic British gold coin named for the West African region that supplied much of its gold, valued at 21 shillings for most of its history and predecessor to the modern sovereign.
British
Netherlands 5 Gulden Gold
A gold 5 gulden coin struck intermittently by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, first under King William I in the 1820s and later as a rare 1912 commemorative under Queen Wilhelmina.
European
Swiss 5 Francs Silver
The Swiss 5 Francs was Switzerland's largest circulating silver coin for over a century, featuring the standing figure of Helvetia, and remains a favorite among collectors of European silver crowns.
European
Islamic Gold Dinar (Umayyad)
The first purely epigraphic Islamic gold coin, introduced by Caliph Abd al-Malik around 696 AD, replacing figural Byzantine-style imagery with Quranic inscriptions.
Ancient
Byzantine Follis
The large bronze workhorse coin of everyday Byzantine commerce, reformed by Emperor Anastasius I in 498 AD with a prominent Greek numeral denoting its value of 40 nummi.
Ancient
Chinese Tang Dynasty Cash
The influential bronze cash coin introduced in the Tang Dynasty, inscribed "Kai Yuan Tong Bao," that established the round-with-square-hole design copied for over a thousand years.
Asian
Umayyad Silver Dirham
A silver coin of the Umayyad Caliphate struck after Caliph Abd al-Malik's monetary reform, bearing only Arabic inscriptions and setting the template for centuries of Islamic coinage.
World
Japanese Koban
A hand-hammered oval gold coin used in feudal Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate, valued at one ryo and stamped with ink calligraphy certifying its weight and fineness.
Asian
Groat (Fourpence)
A historic English silver coin worth four pence, first struck under Edward I in 1279 and periodically revived, later surviving mainly as a Maundy Money denomination.
British
Broad
A gold twenty-shilling coin nicknamed the 'Broad' for its wide, thin flan, struck under the Commonwealth and Oliver Cromwell and continued briefly into the early reign of Charles II.
British
Julius Caesar Portrait Denarius
A landmark Roman coin struck in 44 BC bearing the portrait of Julius Caesar during his lifetime, the first time a living Roman had appeared on state coinage.
Ancient
Aurelian Antoninianus
Radiate coin of Aurelian, the soldier-emperor who reunited the fractured Roman Empire and enacted a major coinage reform introducing standardized silver content marked with XXI or KA.
Ancient
Trajan Sestertius
A large bronze coin of Trajan, whose reign brought the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent, with reverses celebrating Dacian conquest, public works, and Trajan's Column.
Ancient
Indian Head Quarter Eagle ($2.50)
A small gold coin featuring Bela Lyon Pratt's distinctive incuse Native American design, one of only two U.S. denominations ever struck with recessed devices.
United States
Liberty Head Quarter Eagle ($2.50)
A small 19th-century gold coin featuring Christian Gobrecht's Coronet Head design, minted across many branch facilities during America's gold rush era.
United States
Florentine Florin
Introduced in 1252, the gold florin of Florence became medieval Europe's leading trade coin, its lily emblem and fixed gold standard copied by dozens of other mints.
European
Australian Holey Dollar and Dump
In 1813, colonial authorities in New South Wales punched the centers out of Spanish silver dollars to create two coins from one, easing a severe coin shortage while preventing the silver from leaving the colony.
Africa & Oceania
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
Mexican Gold Centenario (50 Pesos)
Mexico's iconic gold coin, first struck in 1921 to mark a century of independence, depicting the Angel of Independence and still produced today as bullion.
Bullion
Augustus Denarius
The main silver coin of Rome's first emperor, Augustus, whose long reign established the imperial monetary system that would last for centuries.
Ancient
French 20 Franc Rooster
A French Third Republic gold coin replacing royal and imperial portraits with republican symbolism: Marianne on the obverse and a standing Gallic rooster on the reverse.
European