An old coin is worth either its metal or a collector premium on top of that metal. Silver and gold coins have a floor set by the spot price of what they contain. Date, mint mark, grade and scarcity decide whether a coin rises above that floor. Copper and nickel coins with no collector demand are often worth little more than face value.
Start with what the coin is made of
Metal sets the floor. A coin made of silver or gold is worth at least what that metal brings at today's spot price, no matter how worn it is. A coin made of copper, nickel or zinc has no such floor, so its worth beyond face depends almost entirely on collectors.
The date and denomination usually tell you the metal without any testing. The clues below cover the coins that turn up most often in Denver drawers and boxes. Anything gold or silver that does not fit one of these rows is worth setting aside for a closer look.
Modern bullion coins are the simplest to read, because the gold or silver content is part of the design. An American Silver Eagle holds one troy oz of .999 silver. The South African Krugerrand is 22K and holds one troy oz of gold, while the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf and the American Gold Buffalo are 24K. A Mexican 50 pesos gold coin, the Centenario, holds 1.2057 troy oz of gold. Coins like these are priced mostly off the spot price, so you can check any offer against the day's number.
| Clue on the coin | What it usually is | Metal inside |
|---|---|---|
| Dime, quarter or half dollar dated 1964 or earlier | 90% silver U.S. coin | About 0.715 troy oz of silver per $1 of face value |
| Kennedy half dollar dated 1965 to 1970 | 40% silver half | Less silver than a pre-1965 half |
| Nickel dated 1942 to 1945 | Possibly a war nickel (most of 1942, all of 1943 to 1945) | 35% silver in the war nickels |
| Large silver dollar dated 1878 to 1935 | Morgan or Peace dollar | 0.7734 troy oz of silver |
| U.S. gold coin dated 1933 or earlier | Circulating gold, 90% gold | 0.9675 troy oz in a $20 double eagle |
| Gold coin with an eagle, dated 1986 or later | American Gold Eagle, 22K | One troy oz of gold in the one ounce size |
| Gray cent dated 1943 that sticks to a magnet | Zinc-coated steel wartime cent | No precious metal |
| Cent dated after 1982 | Copper-plated zinc cent | No precious metal |
A first pass through a mixed box
Clear a table, lay down a towel, and work in small handfuls. Your goal on the first pass is only to separate metal from everything else. Gold goes in one spot, silver dollars in another, pre-1965 silver in a third, and copper and nickel in a fourth. Coins still in albums, Mint packaging or plastic holders stay where they are and go to the side unopened.
On the second pass, look at dates. Indian Head cents dated 1859 to 1909, wheat cents dated 1909 to 1958 and anything from the 1800s get their own small pile. So do coins with odd shapes, doubled lettering or pieces of metal missing, since a few of those may be real mint errors and most will be damage.
Paper money often shares the box with the coins, so give it a pile of its own. Silver certificates were issued until the 1960s and can only be redeemed at face value today, though collectors still buy some of them. Large-size notes, the bigger bills issued before 1929, star notes and red seal notes all get a second look. National Bank Notes printed with the name of a Colorado bank tend to draw regional collectors.
Write down rough counts as you go: how many silver dollars, how many gold coins, how many rolls of dimes. You do not need values. A simple list like that makes it easy to describe the collection on the phone and to notice later if a buyer skipped part of it.
What earns a coin more than its metal
Collector value comes from a short set of things working together. The date and mint mark come first, because they tell a collector how hard that coin is to find. A D under the date of a Lincoln cent or an S on a Morgan dollar's reverse can change the picture entirely, but only for certain years.
Grade is next. Coins are graded on the Sheldon scale from 1 to 70, where higher numbers mean less wear and sharper detail. Two coins of the same date and mint can sit far apart in value because one spent fifty years in pockets and the other sat in a drawer. Eye appeal, meaning even color and clean surfaces, sways collectors within the same grade.
Certification can help. PCGS and NGC grade coins and seal them in plastic holders called slabs, which lets a buyer anywhere trust the grade without seeing the coin. A slab does not raise a common coin's worth on its own, but it can matter a great deal for a scarce date in high grade.
Proof coins and Mint sets sit in a middle ground. Proofs are struck twice on polished dies for collectors, and mint sets hold uncirculated coins, often with Denver and Philadelphia coins packaged side by side. Many silver proof sets carry 90% silver coins, which gives them a metal floor. What a set brings depends on its year and on the condition of the coins and packaging.
Age and value are different things
A coin from 1890 is not automatically worth more than one from 1960. Some years saw enormous production, and those coins stayed common even after a century. A worn silver dollar from a common year is often worth its silver and not much more, while a sharp proof coin from a few decades ago can draw real collector interest.
Damage pulls value down fast. Holes, heavy scratches, bends, signs of jewelry use and corrosion all knock a collector coin toward melt. Cleaning does the same thing quietly: polishing or scrubbing strips the original surface, and graders lower the grade for it even when the coin looks brighter.
Copies turn up too. Replica gold coins, silver-plated pieces and souvenir tokens often look old and official. A buyer with non-destructive testing and a calibrated scale can tell you quickly whether a piece is the real metal it appears to be.
Foreign coins raise the same question. Many are base metal with little collector demand, while gold pieces such as the British Sovereign, which is 22K, and silver issues like the Mexican Libertad and Chinese Panda carry real metal.
Things to leave alone before anyone looks
The easiest way to protect what your coins are worth is to change nothing. Keep these habits until after you have a written offer:
Resist the urge to sort by look alone, too. A dull, dark coin may be a better date with honest original toning, and a shiny one may have been polished years ago. Group coins by date and metal, and leave judgments about condition for the appointment.
- Do not clean, polish or dip any coin, even a dirty one
- Keep coins in the holders, flips, tubes and Mint boxes they came in
- Leave sets and albums whole, even if some holes are empty
- Hold loose coins by the edges
- Keep any notes, receipts or labels that came with the coins
Getting a number you can check
Online price guides give a rough idea, but they assume a grade you cannot confirm at home. The surest way to learn what your coins are worth is to have each one checked in hand and priced in writing.
You can run a rough check on metal coins yourself. Look up the day's spot price for silver, then remember that $1 in face value of pre-1965 dimes, quarters or halves holds about 0.715 troy oz. For a Morgan or Peace dollar, use 0.7734 troy oz. That will not tell you about collector premiums, but it does tell you whether a quote for plain silver is in the right neighborhood.
That is what our free evaluation does. We look at every coin's date, mint mark, grade and eye appeal in front of you, confirm metal with non-destructive testing, and weigh on a calibrated scale. The written offer lists each item, with metal priced off the live spot price and collector coins priced off current demand. You can accept and be paid that visit, or decline and keep the coins and the list. To book a time, phone 303-401-0104.
Old coins in Denver drawers and safes
Colorado's history runs through gold and silver, from the Pikes Peak gold rush of 1858 and 1859 to Leadville's silver boom in the late 1870s and 1880s and the silver crash of 1893. It is no surprise when a Denver estate turns up a few silver dollars or a gold piece kept as a link to that past. Families in Capitol Hill, Congress Park and the Highlands often have coins that were saved by a grandparent and never sorted since. Coins tucked away in Golden or near the Colorado School of Mines sometimes come with a mining family's story attached.
The Denver Mint adds its own layer. Because coins with a D mint mark have been struck on West Colfax Avenue since 1906, local pocket change has always carried plenty of them. Sellers sometimes assume the D makes their coins special. It tells you where the coin was made, and the date and grade still decide the price. A box from a longtime Denver family may hold a run of D cents, D nickels and D quarters, and most will be priced like any other coin of the same date.
We evaluate coins for sellers across the metro, from Arvada and Westminster to Englewood, Aurora and Parker, plus Boulder. Appointments are private and one-on-one, and larger collections can ask about a home visit. If you have sorted a box using the steps above and want to know where it lands, call 303-401-0104. Someone will call you back the same business day and tell you what to bring. Bring the coins as they are, still in their holders.