Coin Encyclopedia
Search and identify coins from around the world — with country, denomination, metal, mint, history, and how to tell them apart.
Flying Eagle Cent
The first small-size U.S. cent, introduced in 1856 to replace the large copper cent, featuring a flying eagle obverse designed by James B. Longacre.
United States
Continental Dollar
A large 1776-dated piece bearing a sundial, 'MIND YOUR BUSINESS,' and a thirteen-link chain, long debated as either an intended Continental Congress dollar or a contemporary satirical piece.
United States
Gothic Crown
An ornate Victorian silver crown featuring a young Queen Victoria in Gothic-script lettering, widely admired as one of the most artistically accomplished coins in British history.
British
Threepence
A small British coin worth three pence, issued first as a tiny silver piece and later as the distinctive 12-sided brass 'threepenny bit' beloved for its unusual shape.
British
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
Classic Head Half Cent
A half cent design used from 1809 to 1836, featuring a Liberty head with a headband inscribed LIBERTY, succeeding the Draped Bust type.
United States
Vermont Copper
Copper coinage struck under authority of the independent Vermont Republic in the 1780s, featuring an early landscape design and later a Britannia-style type.
United States
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
Capped Bust Quarter Eagle
An umbrella term for the earliest U.S. $2.50 gold coins (1796-1834), whose Liberty-in-a-cap portrait evolved through several sub-types, including the famous single-year 1808 issue.
United States
Italian 20 Lire Gold (Vittorio Emanuele)
The Kingdom of Italy's standard 20 lire gold coin, issued under kings including Vittorio Emanuele II, sharing the Latin Monetary Union's gold specifications with coins like the French Napoleon.
European
Vijayanagara Gold Pagoda
A small, thick gold coin of the South Indian Vijayanagara Empire, typically showing Hindu deities or a bull, whose type became so trusted it was widely imitated as the standard South Indian trade "pagoda."
Asian
Capped Bust Half Dollar
A silver half dollar (1807-1839) designed by John Reich, showing Liberty in a cap and drapery, minted in large numbers and popular with type and variety collectors.
United States
Spade Guinea
A George III gold guinea nicknamed for its spade-shaped shield reverse, one of the last widely circulated guinea types before the denomination was phased out in the early 1800s.
British
Capped Bust Half Eagle
John Reich's 1807 redesign turned Liberty to face left and added drapery to her bust, replacing the earlier Capped Bust to Right half eagle for a five-year run before the Capped Head type arrived.
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