Are they worth collecting?

Steven · Expert Member

I know absolutely nothing about a lot of coins that came with some US coins I bought. They range from 1807 to the mid 1900's. Quite a few of them are in the 1800's. Not all coppers and most appear to be British and Canadian I guess? I really don't know what to do with them and don't want to get started collecting them. Is there any anyone on the site that could tell me about these coins or a good site with some information on british coinage.
Not sure about the 1807 may be US large cent.

Robert · Senior Member

Hi Steven. Guys like me collect the foreign ones as well. I actually like foreign for several reasons... they're generally scarcer than their US couterparts, the sliver is often sterling (more pure than US 90%), they're more of a challenge to acqure a date set due to geography, they tend to be more "historic" (i.e. you can find ones dated 1776 etc) and they're usually less expensive on a "cost divided by mintage" basis. It should be said that foreign (i.e. British and Canadian) have much more rigid grading standards than the US. British collectors say "what is 'AU'? Either it's uncirculated or it's not." They also have grades like "good Fine". It takes a little getting used to.

In the order your coins are shown:

1. 1874-H silver 5 cent coin from Canada. The "H" is the Heaton mint mark, which was a private mint in Birmingham, England. Until 1908, Canadian coins were struck in England. Heaton did contract work for the Royal Mint on an as-needed basis. There are 2 varieties for that year... plain 4 and crosslet 4. I can't tell which yours is. The tail of the 4 either ends in a plain line or has a vertical segment at the end. The plain one is slightly better. Krause shows that 800,000 were made (compare to 3.5 million for the 1874 shield nickel). So at most there are 400,000 of each type. The Canadian coin is 92.5% silver BTW. My 1996 Krause says the plain one is $15 in VG and the crosslet one is $10 in VG.

2. Great Britain penny. The coins of that era don't specify a denomination... you're supposed to know by diameter I guess. A penny should be 1 1/4" in diameter. Those dots by the date are only on pennies of King George IY. Mintage is almost 6 million, compared w/ 1.5 million for a 1825 US large cent. But, the British one is much more collectibe... $4.50 in fine vs $26 in fine from my 1996 Krause book. I'm not sure your coin is "fine" though.

3. US large cent, 1807. 727,221 made. $29 in Good back in '96. Don't know what it is today.

If you're interested in collecting foreign, I recommend investing in a Standard Catalog of World Coins by Krause and Mishler or Charlton's reference on Canadian coins, or other similar works. The SCWC is broken into centuries, so you would probably need the 19th and 20th century editions. They're probably $60 plus new, but you can find one a few years older for a lot less. For Canadian and certain British and other countries, there are still some old (from the 1960s) Whitman folders and Bookshelf albums floating around to house them. You might look at eBay or elsewhere to find them.

If you're not interested in these coins, I might be interested in them.

Robert · Senior Member

To answer your question... YES they are worth collecting, IMHO.

Here is a site on grading Canadian. http://www.coinoisseur.com/GradingCoins.html

I don't agree 100% with them but I think they're close. Click on "Grading" and have a look at the images at the bottom.

Here's a site for predecimal (i.e. the "pounds/shillings/pence" that was replaced by the current "100 pennies to a pound" system in 1970). http://www.predecimal.com/grading_standards.htm

That site has lots of other things on it (http://www.predecimal.com/coinsforsale.htm) so you might explore it a bit more.

Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Regards,
Robert

Robert · Senior Member

Oh, and if you want to delve deeper into British coinage, you can go back over 2000 years. There are Celtic coins (pre-Roman), Roman coins, Anglo-Saxon, Medieval, Scottish, Irish, Conder tokens (merchant tokens http://conderclub.homestead.com/), the list goes on. Some are expensive (but generally not as expensive as comparable US coins). Some are a lot less than you would think. For example, I recently bought a silver groat (4 pence coin the size of a dime) dated 1679 for about $15 in fine.

http://www.brainyhistory.com/years/1679.html

I didn't know 1679 was the year of Habeas Corpus.

Buy the book before the coin... sometimes you can find older editions of these or similar books at coin shows. This is just a piece of what is out there. http://www.netcollect.co.uk/cat82_1.htm

Hope I didn't bore you! Wink

Robert

Steven · Expert Member

Thank you for the information and the time. I guess I will do a bit of study before making a determination on what to do with them.
Thanks again,
Steven