Coin Encyclopedia
Search and identify coins from around the world — with country, denomination, metal, mint, history, and how to tell them apart.
Twenty Pence
A seven-sided UK coin introduced in 1982 to fill a gap between the ten pence and fifty pence denominations.
British
Fifty Pence
The UK's distinctive seven-sided 50p coin, introduced in 1969 to replace the ten shilling note ahead of decimalisation.
British
British Trade Dollar
A silver trade dollar struck by Britain to compete with the Mexican and Spanish dollars circulating across Hong Kong, China, and Southeast Asia.
Asian
Royal Mint £5 Crown Commemorative
The modern British £5 coin descends from the historic crown and is issued almost exclusively for commemorative purposes, marking royal events, anniversaries, and national milestones.
Commemorative
Type 2 Indian Princess Gold Dollar
A short-lived, notoriously weakly struck redesign of the U.S. gold dollar, prized today for its brief production window and the striking difficulties that led to its quick replacement.
United States
Ancient British Gold Stater (Cunobelin)
A gold stater of Cunobelin, the powerful pre-Roman British king later immortalized by Shakespeare as Cymbeline, notable for its ear-of-corn and horse reverse types.
Ancient
Sumatra EIC Keping (British Bencoolen)
A small tin or copper coin struck by the British East India Company for its Bencoolen settlement on Sumatra, denominated in the local unit called the keping.
Asian
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
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
Nickel Three-Cent Piece
A post-Civil War small coin struck in copper-nickel to replace the fragile silver three-cent piece and small-denomination paper currency then in circulation.
United States
Five Pound Gold (Quintuple Sovereign)
The largest standard gold coin in the British sovereign family, worth five pounds and equal to five sovereigns, struck intermittently since 1820 for commemorative and collector purposes.
British
2012 London Olympics 50p Series
The Royal Mint issued 29 different circulating 50 pence coins in 2011, each honoring a different sport of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, sparking a nationwide coin-collecting craze in Britain.
Commemorative
Chilean 50 Pesos Gold
A mid-sized Chilean gold coin issued as part of the 1926 gold standard reform, sharing the condor design theme with its larger and smaller companion denominations.
Latin American
Victorian Silver Five Cents
The small sterling silver five-cent coin struck under Queen Victoria for the Province of Canada and later the Dominion of Canada, issued intermittently from 1858 to 1901.
Canadian
1851 Silver Three-Cent Piece
The first-year issue of the tiny Type I silver three-cent piece, nicknamed the trime, created to ease a national shortage of small change and postage-stamp coinage.
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
Type 1 Liberty Head Gold Dollar
The first United States gold dollar, a tiny coin introduced during the California Gold Rush and among the smallest coins ever struck by the U.S. Mint.
United States
Japanese 50 Sen Silver (Meiji Phoenix)
An early Meiji-era Japanese silver coin featuring a coiled dragon on the obverse and a phoenix on the reverse, part of Japan's first modern decimal coinage system introduced after the Meiji Restoration.
Asian
1796 Draped Bust Quarter
The very first quarter dollar struck by the United States Mint, a one-year type coin with a tiny mintage that is treasured by collectors of early American silver.
United States
Gold Half Sovereign
Smaller companion to the gold sovereign, struck since 1817 at half the weight and value, sharing the same monarch portraits and often the same St George reverse design.
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
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
Third Guinea
A small gold coin worth one-third of a guinea, or seven shillings, struck under George III in the years leading up to the introduction of the modern sovereign.
British
Sovereign (Ottawa Mint, C Mintmark)
British gold sovereigns struck at the Ottawa branch of the Royal Mint between 1908 and 1919, marked with a small "C," making Canada part of the empire's global sovereign network.
Canadian