Box of foreign coins found. Need help.

Help with identifying these? Here's a pic of the box and 3 I selected. Thanks!

 

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No clue, but that last one is really cool!

 

I feel like I'm seeing at least a few silver coins in there, a couple 1800's coins. You're gonna need to spread them all out and take a few more photos.

The last one is a Netherlands 5 Cents from 1913. Not a key date, books for maybe $1-1.50 in this condition, so the kind of coin I'd try to sell at .50 or so.

 

That one has to be Netherlands, who are currently whipping the rest of the world's butts at speed skating.

 

The last one is a dutch coin minted for then the A B C islands....Aruba,Bonaire & Curacao....now independent the square nickel of the Carribean

 

The first 2 are big. Like Silver Morgan Dollar size. First one looks chop marked.

 

Actually, Paddy, that's what I thought at first, having only seen the Netherlands Antilles versions...but it's in the Krause as the straight Netherlands version. No idea what the intent for the coin was...but that's where it's at in the book.

Here's the NGC page. Looks like they scanned the Krause for the image, haha

 

This box came from the estate of a U.S. Navy veteran. His son in law says he traveled the world.

 

You bought the box. It's up to you to figure out every coin.
Sounds like fun.

 

Ok that seems strange but you have the book.... I've always seen these in the A B C 's islands....in fact if my memory serves me they had several other square coins.
But must admit time spent on the islands was used for other activities then coins.

 

I didn't buy it yet. Guy gave it to me to look up. I can look up a lot, but Chinese characters are a mystery to me, and I have no books on world coins. But yeah, I will end up looking most of them up eventually. It will be fun to learn.

 

Coin # 1 is an Yuan Shi Kai / wreath 1/2 dollar

 

WOW.

Normally when I see Chinese silver coins, the odds are that they are usually counterfeit. These two however does not seem to be the case!

First coin is 1919 1 yuan, normally known as Fat Man dollar or Yuan Shi Kai. While there are a couple of tiny chopmarks, it still is worth a bit. The second is 1911 1 yuan.

There are a few varieties of these coins and they are out of my expertise. That said, if I had to put a conservative figure on the value of them, the first coin would be around the 80 - 100 dollar mark and the second easily 200 - 300 despite the damages. Don't let people talk you down thinking they can get away for melt value. I've seen that happen and that's insulting.

 

HOLY MACK!

 

I think this is the first time I've seen anyone post a Fat Man dollar that isn't immediately called out as a fake. And I've seen quite a few Fat Man dollars posted here...

 

Now I can't wait to see what else is in this box!

 

I could be very very wrong at the end of the day but I'm dead certain this is consistent of what genuine examples look like.

At one stage about two decades ago, Chinese silver coins were sold as melt value, whether you believe it or not. It would not be a surprise that some little genuine stash appear out of nowhere once in a blue moon.

Now that is what makes hunting coins in a 'junk box' exciting - you never know what is in them. There is this one Russian copper junk lot that I bought off ebay and sorted a long time ago. This is something that I remember clearly. At first sight when I opened the box, it looked like a pile of corroded / poor grade coins and I couldn't figure out why I wanted to pay so much for. The photos did show that the coins were in really sorry state. Bent, corroded, scratched, damaged etc - you name it, they were all there.

Two weeks after sorting and lamenting that I paid way too much for the lot and slowly got rid of the junk, I was still trying to identify years on some coins. Turns out I didn't even realize the importance of one coin. Just one coin. That coin would have easily paid for the whole lot if I choose to sell it and I still get change. While there is no mintage figure and no studies to suggest the survival rate of it, I have not seen more than 10 examples of it online. I suspect there would not be more than 1000 left.

 

I've got a couple of Fat Man dollars. They are not slabbed so I cannot be sure but I bought them from a reputable dealer and have been assured by a couple of other dealers that they are genuine. I'm probably going to hang on to them and not bother slabbing them because I don't think they are worth more than $100 each.

 

I think it's a bit quick to write off the value of Fat Man. Depending on the variety, they can be worth significantly more than what many think.

Just in case you are curious to know more about the Fat Man variety, there's one thread you may want to read. A friendly advice - you might get an overdose of information overkill. I still cannot digest all that information up to today.

https://china-mint.info/forum/index.php?topic=4460.0