Coin Encyclopedia
Search and identify coins from around the world — with country, denomination, metal, mint, history, and how to tell them apart.
Coat of Arms Fifty Cents (Elizabeth II)
Canada's modern fifty-cent piece, showing the Canadian coat of arms on the reverse since 1959 under successive obverse portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and, later, King Charles III.
Canadian
Touchstone Sovereign (Fine Sovereign)
A large, high-value English gold coin struck in especially pure 'fine gold,' valued at thirty shillings and distinguished from the more common crown-gold Sovereign of the same era.
British
Victoria Fifty Cents (half dollar)
Canada's silver fifty-cent piece struck under Queen Victoria from 1870 to 1901, featuring her portrait and a heraldic shield-and-wreath reverse.
Canadian
Anglo-Saxon Silver Penny
The standard silver coin of Anglo-Saxon England from the 8th century to the Norman Conquest, naming the issuing king and the moneyer who struck it.
British
Testoon
The earliest English coin to carry a realistic royal portrait, introduced under Henry VII around 1487 as the forerunner of the shilling, later continued and debased under Henry VIII.
British
2000-P Sacagawea Cheerios Dollar
A famous modern rarity: early-production 2000-P Sacagawea dollars included in Cheerios cereal boxes as a promotion, some showing enhanced eagle tail feather detail not found on later coins.
Errors & Varieties
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
Half Guinea
Smaller companion gold coin to the guinea, worth half its value, struck across the same reigns from Charles II through George III for mid-value transactions.
British
Laurel
A gold twenty-shilling coin issued from 1619, named for its laureate royal portrait styled after Roman emperors, replacing the earlier Unite as James I's principal gold denomination.
British
George Noble
A short-lived English gold coin of 1526 depicting St. George slaying the dragon, among the rarest coins of Henry VIII's reign.
British
Rose Noble (Ryal)
A large English gold coin first struck under Edward IV in 1465, showing the king standing in a ship, and later revived in the Tudor era as a heavier, higher-value gold piece.
British
Angel
An English gold coin depicting the Archangel Michael slaying a dragon, introduced in 1465 and famously used as a ceremonial 'touch piece' in royal healing rituals.
British
Unite
A gold twenty-shilling coin introduced by James I in 1604 to celebrate the union of the English and Scottish crowns, its name literally symbolizing the joining of the two kingdoms.
British
Half Angel (Angelet)
A small English gold coin worth half the value of the Angel, sharing its famous design of the Archangel Michael slaying a dragon, issued across several reigns from Edward IV to James I.
British
Chile Peso (Condor)
Chilean coinage featuring the Andean condor perched or in flight, first seen on 19th-century gold pesos and later on the everyday circulating peso coin.
Latin American
St George Sovereign (Pistrucci)
The modern gold sovereign's iconic reverse showing St George slaying the dragon, engraved by Benedetto Pistrucci in 1817 and still used on British sovereigns to this day.
British
Sacagawea Dollar
A golden-colored, manganese-brass dollar coin (2000-present) depicting Sacagawea carrying her infant son, replacing the Susan B. Anthony dollar.
United States
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
Half Groat
A small hammered silver coin worth half the value of the groat, or two pence, struck across three centuries of English coinage from the reign of Edward III through the Stuart era.
British
Gela Man-Headed Bull Tetradrachm
Silver tetradrachm of the Sicilian city of Gela, featuring a racing quadriga on the obverse and the man-headed bull river god Gelas on the reverse.
Ancient
Aureus of Nero
The gold coin of Emperor Nero, whose AD 64 monetary reform reduced the aureus's weight standard alongside similar changes to the silver denarius.
Ancient
Mexican Libertad
Mexico's flagship bullion coin, featuring the Angel of Independence on the obverse and the national coat of arms on the reverse, prized for its classic design and high purity.
Bullion
Aureus of Augustus
The gold coin of Rome's first emperor, Augustus, who standardized the aureus at roughly 1/40 of a Roman pound and set the gold standard for the empire.
Ancient
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