Coin Encyclopedia
Search and identify coins from around the world — with country, denomination, metal, mint, history, and how to tell them apart.
Chinese Spade Money (Bu Coin)
An early Chinese bronze currency shaped like a miniature farming spade, used across several competing Zhou-era states before round coinage became standardized.
Asian
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
Chinese Silver Panda
China's annual silver bullion coin, issued since 1983 with a new panda design nearly every year, popular with both silver stackers and dedicated Panda date-set collectors.
Bullion
Gold Panda (China)
China's flagship gold bullion coin, issued since 1982 with a different panda design nearly every year, making the series a favorite among both bullion buyers and date-and-design collectors.
Bullion
German 5 Deutsche Mark Commemoratives
West Germany issued special silver 5 Deutsche Mark coins from the 1950s through the mid-1980s to mark anniversaries, institutions, and notable Germans, alongside its regular circulating 5 DM coin.
Commemorative
Spanish 5 Pesetas Silver (Duro)
Spain's classic large silver crown coin, popularly nicknamed the 'duro,' issued under several monarchs and a provisional republic in the late 19th century.
European
Chinese Wu Zhu Cash
One of history's longest-running coin types, cast continuously for over seven centuries across multiple Chinese dynasties after its introduction under Emperor Wu of Han.
Ancient
Tibetan Silver Srang (Ganden Tangka type)
A native Tibetan silver coin issued by the Ganden Phodrang government in Lhasa, featuring the Tibetan snow lion and traditional Tibetan script rather than Chinese imperial designs.
Asian
Chinese Auto Dollar (Kweichow, 1928)
Famous Chinese provincial silver dollar depicting an automobile, struck in Kweichow province in 1928 and celebrated by collectors as one of the most distinctive Chinese coin designs.
Asian
Chinese Song Dynasty Cash Coin
A round bronze coin with a square center hole issued during China's Song Dynasty, among the most massively produced and commonly collected pre-modern Chinese coin types.
Asian
Chinese Yunnan Province Dragon Dollar
A silver dragon dollar struck by China's remote southwestern Yunnan province, notable for its distinctive coiled dragon design and unusually long production continuing well into the Republic era.
Asian
Sun Yat-sen Memorial Dollar (Junk Dollar)
A Republic of China silver dollar honoring founding father Sun Yat-sen, nicknamed the junk dollar for its reverse image of a traditional Chinese sailing ship, a widely collected 1930s Chinese coin.
Asian
Chinese Fengtien Province Dragon Dollar
Silver dragon dollar struck by the provincial mint of Fengtien in Manchuria during the late Qing dynasty, notable for several rare dated varieties.
Asian
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
Sun Yat-sen 'Memento' 1 Dollar (1927)
Silver dollar bearing the portrait of Sun Yat-sen, struck to commemorate the founding of the Republic of China and widely circulated under the Nationalist government.
Asian
Sun Yat-sen Junk Dollar
A Republic of China silver dollar depicting Sun Yat-sen and a traditional sailing junk, with the scarcer 1934 variety showing three birds overhead that is highly sought by collectors.
Asian
Yuan Shih-kai Dollar ("Fat Man Dollar")
A widely circulated Republic of China silver dollar bearing the portrait of President Yuan Shikai, nicknamed the "Fat Man Dollar" for his rounded features and became China's standard silver coin for years.
Asian
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
Yuan Shikai 'Fatman' Dollar (1914)
A widely produced Republic of China silver dollar bearing the portrait of President Yuan Shikai, nicknamed the fat man dollar for his portly likeness, one of the most common historic Chinese silver coins.
Asian
French 5 Francs Hercules
A large silver crown depicting an allegorical Hercules flanked by Liberty and Equality, struck at pivotal republican moments in French history as a statement of civic ideals.
European
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
Mark Antony Legionary Denarius
A widely produced denarius struck by Mark Antony to pay his legions before the Battle of Actium, each type naming a specific Roman legion on the reverse.
Ancient
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
Constantius II Centenionalis
A bronze centenionalis of Constantius II featuring the dramatic 'Fallen Horseman' reverse, one of the most famous designs of the Late Roman Empire.
Ancient