Hi. I'm new in this forum. I'm a coin collector from Italy and collect mostly euros and old European coins but also some world coins. Few days ago I bough in a coin shop a bag with 35 mixed old American coins for the equivalent of 15$. Inside there were the following coins (4 of them weren't American): - Quarter dollars (silver): 1936, 1943, 1945S, 1949D, 1950 and 1964 - Dime (silver): 1950 - Nickels: 1946, 1948, 1953 and 1964 - Pennies (old style with wheat): 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943 (made by iron and not copper), 1944, 1944S, 1945, 1945S, 1946, 1948, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956D, 1957 and 1957D - Pennies (new style with Lincoln monument): 1959D, 1963D and 1969 - 10 cents Netherlands 1943 (German occupation) - 1/4D South Africa 1942 - 10 piastres Syria 1929 (silver, size similar to a dime) - 5 cents New Zealand 1975 I realized that the coins I bough are worth much more what I paid for them, because there are some made of silver, so I did a good business. I guess that is because that Italian coin dealer didn't know much about American coins and ignored that dimes and quarters were made of silver until 1964. I'm not very expert about American coins. Are my coins common or there are some rare and more valuable? Are those 50-70 years old pennies and nickel still in use in America or don't circulate anymore? Thanks.
Welcome to the neighborhood! Yes, those old wheat cents and Jefferson nickels still circulate in the US. Chris
Welcome to the forum Stefy. A lot of those cent and nickle coins can still be found in circulation today. The silver quarters are rarely seen in circulation but can sometimes be found (albeit rarely) in bank rolls. I don't see any rarities in your find other than the fact that you were able to score the silver. Nice find......
Thanks for your replies. Even if there aren't rare coins it was still a very good deal since I found on the net that the silver value of all my silver coins is around 40$ and I paid less than half. I noticed that most countries stopped the production of silver coins for circulation in the 1960s. In Italy there were £500 silver coins until 1967 (size like a Kennedy half dollar), when the price of the silver became higher than £500. The same for France, Germany, Switzerland and other countries. However, steel £50 and £100 coins from the 1950s were still in circulation when we adoped the euro in 2002.
Nice pick up. They aren't rare date US coins but you probably have a little over $40 on the US coins alone assuming circulated condition.
It is more a philatelic shop, with also some coins. I asked for euro coins and they had normal market price there. I saw lots of worthless pre euro coins from different countries at the same price of that USA lot with more than 1oz of silver. I guess he don't know what coins are silver.
Today I returned there and picked up all silver coins I found in the box of mixed junk coins: - 1950 Canadian quarter - 1951 US dime - 1943 and 1963 Canadian dimes - 3 pence South Africa 1925 (smaller than a dime) - 10 gram lei 835 Venezuela 1929 (size like a quarter) - 2 piastres Egypt ureadable date (hexagonal, 50% silver) I also picked some worthless European coins to fill holes in my collection, a 1924 US penny and a 1776-1976 commemorative US quarter. I paid only 4$ for all above. Unfortunately I cannot get expensive European coins for cheap because the seller know how much they worth, while non-European coins are just mixed together.
The dates on Egyptian coins are written in Arabic numbers. Sometimes they only put the Islamic year, sometimes they put the Islamic year and the Gregorian year (which is what we use). If it only has the Islamic year you can match it up on the chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamic_years
