CoinLoupe Guides

How to identify old coins and find out what they're worth

Published October 21, 2026

You found a tin of old coins in a parent's drawer, or a coin in your change looks different. Before you search "is this worth money", spend ten minutes identifying it properly. Almost every question about value comes down to five facts you can read off the coin yourself: country, denomination, date, mint mark and metal — and then one you can't fake, condition.

First rule, before anything else: don't clean the coin. Not with vinegar, not with toothpaste, not with a cloth. Cleaning is the most common way people turn a collectible coin into a face-value one. Here's why.

What you need

Good light — a desk lamp you can angle, or a window with indirect daylight.
A magnifier. A 5x–10x loupe is ideal; your phone's camera zoom or the built-in Android Magnifier (Accessibility settings) works too.
A soft cloth or a towel to set coins on, so you don't scratch them.
Optional: a kitchen scale that reads to 0.01 g, and a fridge magnet.

Hold coins by the edge, between thumb and finger. Fingerprints on the faces of a coin can leave marks that are hard to remove later.

Step 1 — Find the country

Most coins name the issuing country somewhere: "United States of America", "Canada", "Helvetia" (Switzerland), "Deutschland" or "Bundesrepublik Deutschland", "République Française", "Nippon" characters on Japanese coins. If there's no country name, look for a monarch's portrait and Latin abbreviations — British coins, for example, use legends like "D·G·REG·F·D" around the portrait. Euro coins share a common side; the other side carries a national design that tells you which country issued it.

Step 2 — Read the denomination

The face value is usually spelled out ("ONE CENT", "QUARTER DOLLAR", "5 PFENNIG") or written as a number. Some older US coins state it in words only, and some world coins in a local script. The denomination plus the country already narrows you to a handful of design types — for US coins, that's usually enough to name the series (Lincoln cent, Jefferson nickel, Washington quarter, Morgan dollar and so on).

Step 3 — Read the date (carefully)

Dates wear down first because they sit on raised areas. Tilt the coin under a single light source rather than looking at it straight on — raking light throws shadows into worn digits and makes them readable. A partial date still helps: if you can read "19_8" on a wheat-back Lincoln cent, you already know it's between 1909 and 1958.

Be careful with lookalike digits: 3/8, 6/8 and 1/7 are easy to confuse on worn coins, and that matters because a single digit can be the difference between a common date and a key date.

Step 4 — Look for a mint mark

Many countries strike coins at more than one mint and mark which one with a small letter. On US coins the common marks are:

Mark	Mint
none or P	Philadelphia (most older Philadelphia coins carry no mark)
D	Denver
S	San Francisco
W	West Point
CC	Carson City (1870–1893)
O	New Orleans (historic)

The location moves around by series — under the date on modern Lincoln cents, on the reverse of Morgan dollars, above Monticello on wartime nickels. German coins use letters A, D, F, G and J for their mints; many other countries use small symbols instead of letters.

Mint marks matter because the same date and design can have very different mintages at different mints. That's exactly why the 1909-S Lincoln cent is a well-known key date while the 1909 Philadelphia cent is common.

Step 5 — Check the metal

Metal can make an ordinary-looking coin worth more than face value. For US coins, a few widely known rules:

Dimes, quarters and half dollars dated 1964 or earlier are 90% silver. Look at the edge: silver coins show a solid silver-colored edge, while later clad coins show a copper stripe.
Kennedy half dollars from 1965–1970 are 40% silver.
Jefferson nickels from 1942–1945 with a large mint mark above Monticello contain 35% silver ("war nickels").
1943 Lincoln cents were struck in zinc-coated steel and stick to a magnet. A copper-colored 1943 cent that doesn't stick is worth a closer look — but most are plated or altered, so treat it as "get it checked", not "jackpot".
Cents switched from mostly copper to copper-plated zinc during 1982; the two versions weigh about 3.1 g and 2.5 g.

Step 6 — Be honest about condition

Two coins with the same date and mint mark can differ in value many times over because of condition. Collectors use the 1–70 Sheldon scale, from barely identifiable (1) through Good, Fine, Very Fine, Extremely Fine and About Uncirculated, to Mint State (60–70) for coins that never circulated. A rough self-check:

Are the highest points of the design (hair, cheek, feathers) worn flat? → circulated.
Is fine detail sharp everywhere and is there original mint luster (a cartwheel shine when you tilt it)? → possibly uncirculated.
Scratches, dents, holes, corrosion or signs of cleaning lower value sharply.

Most coins in an inherited jar are circulated common dates worth face value or a little more. That's normal, and it's still worth checking — the exceptions are why people check.

Step 7 — Put a value range on it

Once you know exactly what the coin is, look up a value range for that exact coin in roughly that condition:

Price guides — PCGS CoinFacts and the NGC price guide publish values by grade for many US and world coins; printed guides like the "Red Book" (US) and the Standard Catalog of World Coins (Krause) are the classic references.
Sold listings — completed sales on auction sites show what people actually paid. Asking prices don't.
A coin identifier app — useful for the first pass, especially when you don't know what the coin is yet. Treat any app's number as an estimate.

Always think in ranges, not a single number, and expect a dealer to offer less than retail — they need margin to resell.

When to get a professional opinion

If what you've found looks like a key date, a known variety or an error, or simply looks unusually nice, stop and get an expert opinion before selling. The two largest third-party grading services are PCGS and NGC; they authenticate and grade coins for a fee and seal them in tamper-evident holders. A reputable local dealer can usually tell you in minutes whether grading is worth the cost. Be wary of anyone who offers to buy on the spot after telling you a coin is worthless.

Doing the first pass with your phone

If you have a whole jar to go through, a camera-based identifier saves time on steps 1–5. CoinLoupe (Android) is ours: you photograph a coin and it returns the country, year, mint mark, denomination, composition and an estimated value range from worn to uncirculated, with a match percentage so you know when it's unsure. It's free for 3 identifications a day. Google Lens can also name many coins for free, though it won't give you a structured value range. Whatever tool you use, the steps above are how you double-check it.

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