Coin Encyclopedia
Search and identify coins from around the world — with country, denomination, metal, mint, history, and how to tell them apart.
Una and the Lion Five Pound
A legendary 1839 gold proof depicting young Queen Victoria as Una leading a lion, widely considered one of the most beautiful coins ever struck and a benchmark of Victorian coin art.
British
Mexican 8 Reales Pillar Dollar
Minted in colonial Mexico City from 1732 to the early 1770s, the pillar dollar's crowned globes and Pillars of Hercules design made it one of the most widely trusted silver trade coins in the world.
Latin American
Visigothic Gold Tremissis
Small gold coin of the Visigothic kings of Spain, evolving from crude imitations of Roman/Byzantine coinage into the first distinctly national royal coinage of post-Roman Western Europe.
European
Netherlands 2½ Gulden
The largest regularly circulating silver coin of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, popularly nicknamed "rijksdaalder," featuring the reigning monarch's portrait across more than a century of Dutch coinage.
European
Netherlands Rijksdaalder Gulden
The 2.5 guilder coin of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, carrying forward the historic rijksdaalder name through the monarchy era until the euro's adoption.
European
1908-S Indian Head Cent
The first Indian Head cent struck at the San Francisco Mint, marking the first time a branch mint produced a one-cent coin for the United States.
United States
Brazil 960 Reis
Brazilian silver coin created by overstriking Spanish colonial 8 reales with new Portuguese royal dies, issued after the Portuguese royal court relocated to Brazil.
Latin American
1901-S Barber Quarter
The single rarest business-strike coin in the Barber quarter series, with an extremely small San Francisco mintage that makes even heavily worn examples valuable.
United States
1975 No S Proof Roosevelt Dime
One of the rarest and most valuable modern US coin errors: a 1975 proof dime struck without its San Francisco 'S' mintmark, with only a handful of examples known.
Errors & Varieties
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
Colombian 8 Escudos Gold (Popayán)
A large colonial gold doubloon struck at the historic Popayán mint in present-day Colombia, prized by collectors as one of the classic Spanish colonial gold coins of South America.
Latin American
1893-S Morgan Dollar
The undisputed key date of the Morgan dollar series, struck at San Francisco with the lowest mintage of any regular-issue Morgan, roughly 100,000 coins.
United States
Kellogg & Co. Gold Piece
Private gold coinage struck by the San Francisco firm Kellogg & Co. during the California Gold Rush, including the famous octagonal fifty-dollar 'slug' of 1855, filling a shortage of circulating coin.
United States
Brazilian 960 Reis Silver
A silver crown-sized coin struck in Brazil under Prince Regent João and later Pedro I, famous for often being overstruck directly on circulating Spanish colonial 8-reales pieces.
Latin American
Costa Rica 2 Colones Gold
A small gold denomination from Costa Rica's early colon-era coinage, part of a family of gold coins (2, 5, 10, and 20 colones) struck around the turn of the twentieth century.
Latin American
Belgian Franc
Belgium's national currency from independence in 1830 through the Latin Monetary Union era and into the Euro age, minted in both French and Dutch legends.
European
1921 Fifty Cents (King of Canadian Coins)
Canada's most famous rarity, the 1921 fifty-cent piece survives in only a small number of known examples after most of its mintage was melted, earning it the nickname King of Canadian Coins.
Canadian
French Napoleon 20 Francs Gold
France's standard 19th-century gold coin, first struck under Napoleon I and continued under later rulers and the Republic, giving rise to the enduring nickname "Napoleon" for any 20-franc gold coin.
European
1875-S Twenty-Cent Piece
The most commonly encountered date in the short-lived US twenty-cent piece series, struck in large numbers at San Francisco in the coin's debut year.
United States
Fifty Pence
The UK's distinctive seven-sided 50p coin, introduced in 1969 to replace the ten shilling note ahead of decimalisation.
British
1955 Doubled Die Lincoln Cent
A famous doubled die error showing strong, plainly visible doubling on the date and lettering of the obverse, among the most recognizable die varieties in U.S. coinage.
Errors & Varieties
French 10 Francs Gold (Napoleon Rooster)
A small French gold coin from the Third Republic featuring the Gallic rooster reverse, a smaller companion to the famous 20 francs 'Coq' gold piece.
European
French Indochina Piastre de Commerce
A large silver trade dollar issued by colonial French Indochina, weighted to match the Mexican and Spanish trade dollars already circulating throughout Southeast Asian and Chinese commerce.
Asian
Halfpenny
A small British bronze coin worth half a penny, best known in its twentieth-century form featuring Sir Francis Drake's ship the Golden Hind on the reverse.
British