I need help to evaluate this coin. It's a silver 1814 8 Reales (a.k.a 8 Escudos) coin with the face of King Ferdinand VII (Fernando VII). Someone offered me 400 Euro for it. Need to know if it worths more. 10x guys, any help is apreciated! Here is the pic:
Nechifor,you could try looking under Colombia if you have got a 19th Century Krause catalogue.The 8 Escudos is a gold coin.The silver 8 Reales is known as a Piece of Eight or a Spanish-American dollar.If it is a Colombian coin,then it is a lot scarcer than the ones from Peru,Mexico & Bolivia.
Howdy Nechifor - Welcome to the Forum !! To be honest - if someone offered me 400 Euros for that coin - I would not sell it to them. But not for the reason you think. I wouldn't sell it for that because when they found out what it was really worth - they'd probably come looking for me with a gun. What you have there is an 8 reales struck at the Guatemala mint. NG is the mint mark. The coin is worth about $40, but if you got lucky and found a collector that wanted it bad enough, you might get $60.
Nechifor,I looked it up.Your coin is from Guatemala, not Colombia.The 'N.G.' mintmark stands for 'Neuva Guatemala' or 'New Guatemala' in English.A Guatemalan Spanish-American coin is a difficult one to find.I reckon that you are better off keeping it.
Sorry guys for this, but the picture of the coin is taken from the Internet. On my coin, on the back side is written " NE (or ME)-8R-J-P" not " NG-8R-M ". Excuse me for did n't noticed from the beggining.
And I olso have 2 bigger coins, they look much older, about 4,5 cm in diameter, silver, they have no year on them and they are written in someking of old arabic, turkish or greek language (seems more arabic to me). The letters are the same, but they look diffrent on every coin (like the hand writing of a person - same letters but diffrent size or style every time). I have no camera to take some pictures, but I'll try to get one a.s.a.p and post the pics. In the meen time, can you give me a hint or a clue where to look, where to find this kind of coins? Thank you very much. AND EXCUSE ME FOR MY POOR ENGLISH.
Welcome to the forum. Check your local library for a copy of the Standard Catalog of World Coins by Krause & Mishler, usually referred to here simply as "Krause". It's a telephone book-size catalog of most world coins, in separate volumes for each century, starting with the 17th. Most of the coin illustrations are actual size, and there are pages illustrating key markers and the countries they belong to. At worst you would simply have to look at the listings for each country in the Middle East and coins that large will be easy to spot. If you can find a way to post pictures in this forum, there will probably be someone who can help you pinpoint exactly what you have. No apologies required. Your English is far better than my (fill in the blank)
Here you'll find the picture for the back side of the coin. Excuse me for my mistake. http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinImages/Sp-milled-2/Sp-8R-Lima-1814.rev.jpg
Very nice picture! I'm going to give an opinion, but I grade mostly US coinage. From the reverse, I would say it's VG. There are portions of the design that are fainter, though most details are visible. The rim looks to be in excellent condition, so it may be a VG+. I'm very curious to see what our "darksiders" have to say about this one.
One small thing that I forgot to mention is that I live in Romania. Some things that look natural to you are impossible to me, like searchin' that book in a local library... I'll try to find an antiquity store or something like that, or i'll go to the National Library (I hope they'll let me in!). I'll try to make some pics for the coins. 10x
Please post either the internet picture, or a link to it. That's a condition grade assigned to coins that may be well worn, but have clear and bold main design features. Many people consider VG as either the lowest collectible grade, or the highest non-collectible grade for coins that are not particularly rare. I would give your coin an F (that's for Fine - considerable wear but a bold design and pleasing appearance - not Failed. ) F is definitely a collectible grade.
I think I need to dig up all those international grading links that GD posted for me a while back. Thanks for responding Roy.
Nechifor,the Lima mintmark is in the form of a monogram (a series of letters joined together).So what's the weather been like over there in Romania? It has been very hot over here in New Zealand.By the way,I have got the 1999 Solar Eclipse commemorative 500 Lei coin & the 2,000 Lei plastic banknote.The note is being withdrawn.
