old old coins gold I think

Went to the bank to take invintory of my late fathers bank box. Among a few things were 7 gold colourd coins in plastic sleves that are not perfectly round. On one side is what looks to be a fleur de les and on the other side is a guy holding a staff at an angle across his chest, with a cross on the top of the staff. He is bierded and is whereing a long shirt like thing. The lettering on them I can only make out as FEO . There seems to be more lettering but Cant make out the charictors. There are bacially two words and seprate three letters with a dot at the end. I don't have pics as I am not allowed to take pics in the bank vault so I have to remove them. I have searched for hours trying to find what they are and led to here. Can anyone help? I need to know roughly what I am dealing with before I remove them. the bank mgr said he has seen a lot of gold and was sure they were gold. Any help would be great.

 

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Take the coins out of the vault so you can take pictures of them, photos are critical for this type of thing. Not only for identification, but also for grading. Those coins could be in a fair shape, or uncirculated, and the difference from one grade to another could be hundreds or thousands of dollars.

 

How To Post (upload) Photos

 

until I can get pic does anyone have any idea what these are and if you have a pic I can compare to what I saw. Its driving me crazy not knowing what they are.

 

You can look on ebay if you have some kind of idea what they are. If you don't have an idea then it's like throwing water in the wind. Pull them out of the vault for a day, or have your Mom pull them out just to do research.

There are many experts on this forum but they need something to work with. good luck:thumb:

 

Many, many coins have a 'fleur de lis' motif, which may signify the French monarchy or France in general but it could be Italian as well. Look near the bottom of this page. You really need to provide some sort of photo, even with a camera phone, or use a scanner if you can... something for us to go on. Please provide more complete text of characters on the coin.

Do a Google image search and use terms like: medieval, gold, florin and "fleur de lis" then search until you find images that appear similar to your coin. Just try to hone in on what it is, then research your coin as far as you can. There are knowledgeable members of CoinTalk that can help you once you can provide more details on what coins you have.

You might see stuff like this:



image from: Tell Tale Coins

 

thats exactly what they are what you have in those pics. Thanks so very much. Would these be valuable behond there gold content. They are not nearly as shiny as the one in your pic. And there is a cross at the top of the staff not a ball. longer bierd too.

 

Please take our advice, POST PICS and start doing some research on your own.
With pics here, you can get better answers.

 

here are what they look like exactly. Just not as clean looking. But the immages are the same.

 

It looks like they are florins from Italy. Why on earth would my Dad have these tucked away. He collected stamps ?

 

Okay, so now you know what type of coin you are dealing with, but you do need to know if what you have is authentic from that era and the condition YOUR coin is in for an assessment of value. This is why you MUST post images of YOUR coin. But in the mean time run some Google searches on the type of coin and read up on their history. You should also weigh each of your coins and check against known authentic coins like these coins' weights. IF you do not have a jewelers scale you could visit a coin/bullion or jewelry shop to ask them to help you identify and weigh, (maybe) authenticate and perhaps suggest a value for insurance purposes to your coin(s)...

PLEASE POST PIC OF YOUR COIN(S) WHEN YOU CAN. THANKS.

 

Thanks very much Krispy. A friend of mine happens to be in the jewelry busness so I will get him involved. He carries insurance to handle these things so I will hand it off to him for evaluation. He is on vacation right now tho. I have been reading like a mad man and so far they seem to be original florin coins from Italy. The guy with the bierd is non other than John the Baptist. Are there a lot of these around? i cant find any where saying what the value may be. just a lot of history of the Renasounce (sp sorry). Would a musium want these ? I sure hope they are valuable cause I could sure use the money. My Mom figures they were won in a poker game. They were willed to me but if the have exeptional value I will have to share with my Mom. She said my Dad had them appraised at some point but we can't find the paperwork. But emediatly after the appraisial they went in the safty deposit box. The articles I have read state these are the first minted coins in Italy and were duplicated throught the rest of Europe but without John the Baptist, but instead using people like the virgin mary. i will keep reading. This is fun.

 

It is indeed fun! Enjoy!

One other thing, you mentioned you would 'hand it off to him for evaluation', unless this is a VERY VERY close personal and trusted friend/dealer, I would NOT leave the coin with someone else. They should be able to do the appraisal in your prescience and you should also leave their establishment with your coin. That's the safest way to play it. :thumb:

 

I hear you Krispy. Thanks for the words of caution.

 

First, congratulations on your coins. I also have jeweler friends, and they generally know very little about coins, particularly numismatic value, unless they have some particular interest in it. For most of them, gold is gold, and all they are going to be able to do is weigh the coin for you, which you can do yourself. You are much better off posting a picture here in terms of getting an idea of its value.

Aside from that, what Krispy said is true, your coins should never leave your sight for an appraisal. Think about it, all they are going to do is weigh it, measure it, and look it up on the Internet. If they can't do that in front of you, I wouldn't trust it. Besides, it is much more fun learning about it yourself and puts you in a better position when you sell. By the way, handle the coins carefully (by the edges) when you are examining them. Enjoy!

.

 

Whatever you do, don't try to clean them. Try not to touch them either. Best of luck.

Keep in mind some of the professional grading services that are available. Many members on this forum seem to use them.

 

Hey Tools check out this other thread

I was searching the internet to try to help further unravel your Florin coins and the search lead back here to CoinTalk in another thread.

http://www.cointalk.com/t47844/

 

Thanks Kang.
Thats a great picture. So far I have decided to send the coins off to be graded. I will keep the best one and auction the rest off. From the extensive reading I have done, there is a demand for these coins. Just have to get the results from grading and decide on a reserve. It will take several weeks to have them graded with shipping. Speaking of shipping. How much should I insure them for?
After the excitement wore off I started thinking why my Dad left them to me as I have two brothers. I started feeling guilty that I was thinking about the money and keeping one will help with that.I sure miss him and wish I could ask him how or where he got them. I wonder if he wanted me to pass them down to my kids. It is strange. When I start thinking of stuff like this, money becomes a distant second.

 

I miss my Dad too !
I am still new to collecting , so I am unable to answer your question about insurance but I sure would have liked to have seen a photo or two of your coins before they were sent off for grading. That way we could see how good the grading/preservation company did when you get them back.
Thanks to the folks on this forum , I got myself a basic membership with
the "American Numismatic Association" yesterday WoooHOOO !
Now I can submit coins directly to NGC ( with no middle man ) !
So far I have found it impossible to part with a single coin ( except junk silver & gold bullion ) from my Dad & instead of trying to sell the coins with numismatic value, I am TRYING to collect some of my own.
At this point I think it is a bad idea to sell any collectible item just to have hard cold cash laying around doing nothing. I want to make sure that I have an intended purpose for the proceeds from a sale; like tangible items or heck maybe even some other collectible coins ?

Please share some GOOD PHOTOS of your coin/s when you get them back from grading.

Cheers

 

i will put the photos here as soon as i take them