Coin

Coins are pieces of hard material used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government.

Coins are usually made of metal, alloy, or synthetic materials. They come in different shapes, of which circular is the most common. Coins made of valuable metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in everyday transactions, circulating alongside banknotes: these coins are usually worth less than banknotes: usually the highest value coin in circulation (i.e. excluding bullion coins) is worth less than the lowest-value note.

In the last hundred years, the face value of circulation coins has occasionally been lower than the value of the metal they contain, for example due to inflation. If the difference becomes significant, the issuing authority may decide to withdraw these coins from circulation, or the general public may decide to melt the coins down or hoard them.

Exceptions to the rule of face value being higher than content value also occur for some bullion coins made of silver or gold (and, rarely, other metals, such as platinum or palladium), intended for collectors or investors in precious metals. Examples of modern gold collector/investor coins include the British sovereign minted by the United Kingdom, the American Gold Eagle minted by the United States, the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf minted by Canada, and the Krugerrand, minted by South Africa. While the Eagle, Maple Leaf, and Sovereign coins have nominal (purely symbolic) face values, the Krugerrand does not.

Historically, a great quantity of coinage metals (including alloys) and other materials (e.g. porcelain) have been used to produce coins for circulation, collection, and metal investment: bullion coins often serve as more convenient stores of assured metal quantity and purity than other bullion.

Browsing the Catalog

The Colnect Coin Catalog can be filtered from the Catalog drop-down menu or the start page by the following properties:

• Countries: The country the coin was issued in. The catalog also contains historical (i.e. no longer existing) and not generally recognized (i.e. self-declared independence) countries. Fantasy issues are captured as a separate country, the distinction between coins and tokens is not always easy.
• Compositions: The composition of the coin, i.e. the material(s) it is made from. Most coins are made of metal or metal alloys, but other substances (e.g. ceramic) have been used. Since the 1980s bi-metallic coins have been introduced, consisting of two differently looking compositions to form an outer and an inner area. Some modern commemorative coins not meant for circulation also include non-metal parts, e.g. an embedded Swarowski crystal or applied paint.
• Mints: The place the coin was produced. More than one mint can be assigned to a coin if it was struck in different mints. For still existing mints the current official name is used, even if it was named differently at the time the coin was struck. As an example, the mint in Munich, Germany is shown as Bavarian State Mint (Bayerisches Hauptmunzamt), Munich, Germany (D Mint Mark) even though for coins struck before 1919 it was named Königliches Hauptmünzamt (royal main minting office), and coins struck before 1873 and also coins struck for other countries than Germany mostly do not use the D mint mark.
• Distributions: The way a coin is issued. Options are:

• Bullion Coinage: These coins are struck for investors in precious metals, e.g. gold, silver, platin, palladium. When issued, they are sold at the current price of the metal plus a mining premium. The price of most bullion coins are determined by their metal value, though exceptions exist where the collector value is significantly higher than the metal value. Please note that prior to the abandoning of the currency gold standard coins often contained their face value in precious metals. This kind of coin is termed currency money, while the current circulation coins, whose value is not contained in them in precious metal, are named monetary tokens.
• Circulating Commemorative: These are commemorative coins intended for circulation. Modern circulating commemoratives are mostly not seen in general circulation, though exceptions exist. The difference to numismatic products is that they are struck in a regular minting process and, if the denomination of an existing standard circulation coin is used, have the same specifications (composition, size, weight) as the standard circulation coin.
• Countermarked Coinage: These are coins that are overstruck to make them into a different coin. This method was often used when coins became scarce or a change of government required quick change of coinage.
• Numismatic Product: These coins are struck only for coin collectors (numismatists), not for circulation (though they are legal tender). Most numismatic product are created in a special minting process, e.g. proof or proof-like, so their surface must be protected from touch. Numismatic product coins with flaws have generally little value.
• Pattern Coinage: Pattern coinage is minted to test a design or minting process. Their distribution is limited to officials involved in the design approval process, though in modern times some countries sell them to collectors. This should not be confused with private essays of coins that never existed, such essays are fantasy issues.
• Piedforts: These are coins struck for a thicker die than the regular coins, or from a different composition (e.g. silver instead of copper-nickel).
• Standard Circulation: These coins are used for everyday circulation as money. Special versions for collectors may exist, but generally you can (or could, for past coins) find these in your change in the issuing country.
• Weight-based Coinage: This is also named trade coinage. It was mainly used as a means to pay across country borders.
• Year Set: These sets contain the standard circulation coinage of one year. Some sets also contain a medal or a commemorative coin. There are a few sets that include coins from different or multiple years. The coins of for most year sets are either minted individually, so they don't have the small damages from the automated mass minting process, or they are produced in a special minting process, e.g. proof or proof-like.

• Edges: The edge of the coin can have different shapes and minting. Really old coins struck with a hammer have no defined edge, when the process became more automated reeding or milling was used to protect coins of precious metal to be shaved off. Nowadays the coin edge is part of the security measures to protect money from being forged.
• Orientations: As coins (except some cases where only one side has anything minted onto it) generally have two sides, these two sides have an orientation to each other. Coin orientation is measured against the way book pages are oriented to each other. Options are:

• Coin alignment ↑O↓: Named after the way the coins of the USA are minted, coin alignment means when you turn the coin in the way you would turn a page in a book the other side is oriented upside-down from the first side, so the angle between both sides is 180°.
• Medal alignment ↑O↑: Named after the orientation of USA medals, medal alignment means that when you turn the coin the same way you would turn a page in a book, both sides are oriented exactly the same way, so the angle between both sides is 0°.
• Coin or Medal alignment ↑O↓ || ↑O↑: This option is used for coins that exist in both orientations.
• Rotated alignment: ↑□←: This is used for any coin that has neither coin nor medal alignment, but the orientation between the two sides is any angle except 0° and 180°.
• Uniface ○●: Used for coins with minting on only one side. Many low-denomination medieval coins are uniface, which doesn't mean their back is plain - they were struck out of thin metal sheet, so the whole sheet took the form of the coin, the front being readable, the back inverse.
• Unknown: Currently the correct orientation is not entered into the catalog. If you know the correct orientation, you can help by submitting it in a comment.

• Shapes: While most coins are circular disks, currently there are 49 different shapes (not counting unknown) represented in the Colnect Catalog. Ancient coins that were hammered are always irregular in shape due to the production process.
• Rims: The rim is the outer end of the coin motiv to the edge. The rim decoration, if present, is slightly inwards of the rim. For example the rim can be raised (usually as high as the other raised areas of the coin) and decorated with dots. Rim and rim decoration styles can be different on each side of the coin.
• Mint Years: The year minted on the coin. If a coin was minted in several years, the coin will appear in each year it was minted. Note: This will only work for coins having both a start and an end year of minting entered, if either or both dates are missing in the catalog, the coin will be listed as year 0000. Coins that were minted during a period but not in each year will show only in the years they were actually minted if that information was entered into the catalog using the minor variants feature. If the minor variants feature is not used for a coin, it will show in all years of the minting period. If you see a coin listed in a year it was not minted, please leave a comment for the item so it can be corrected by an editor.
• Years: The first year minted on the coin. In most cases this is the year the coin was both minted and issued, but some countries have other regulations. This becomes obvious with the initial Euro circulation coins: they were struck in all countries (except Greece that joined later) from 1999 to 2002 and issued in 2002 (starter sets already end of 2001 but not yet legal tender). The Netherlands, France, Spain and Monaco (only minted in 2001 and 2002) show the actual year of minting, while all other countries show the year of issue (2002) on the coins. Note: The Years filter shows coins only in their first year minted, but often you have a coin with a year shown but no idea in which year it was originally minted, then use the filter Mint Years. If you are looking for coins only in their last year minted, please use the hidden filter Expiry Years.
• Face Values: This filter lists all numerical face values (regardless of the currency). Please note that the actual number is displayed as minted on the coin without any change to fraction value, so 10 cent will show alongside 10 dollar as 10, not converted into dollar as 0.1.
• Currencies: The currency as shown on the coin (but harmonized and unabbreviated). Please note that fractional currency units are listed as separate currencies, so there is an entry for Euro and a separate for Euro cent.
• Themes: The theme of the coin. One coin can have more than one theme. Only the themes from the Colnect Global Cross-Category Themes List can be used.
• Recently updated: Coins where at least one piece of information was changed in the last 30 calendar days. The last change applied is used to determine the change age of the coin. This can be further filtered by the last 1, 3, 7, 14 and 30 calendar days.
• Newly Added: Coins added to the Colnect Tokens Catalog within the last 30 calendar days. This can be further filtered by the last 1, 3, 7, 14, and 30 calendar days.
• Import Log: A list of all New Item Forms (NIFs) that have been imported to the Colnect Coins category since 2013. It shows date, the person who created the NIF, the coordinator who imported it, the number of coins imported, and the country of the coin. Please note that it is not possible to find the coins that were in the NIF, this information is not stored in the database.

The catalog also contains other properties to further describe the coins:

• Name (60 characters): The name of the coin, which usually consists of the face value, currency and subject.
• Variant: If a coin is marked as a variant, you can get a list of all variants of this coin by clicking on Click to see variants.
• Catalog Code: A catalog code corresponding to the definite catalog.
• Weight: The weight of the coin in grams.
• Diameter: The size of the coin in millimeters (mm).
• Known mintage: The number of coins of the definite type minted.
• Composition Details: More detailed information about the composition of the coin.
• Score: A unique index that enables estimating the value of an item.
• Description: A detailed description of the coin. This may include information on how to distinguish variants.
• Front Picture and Back Picture: Both front and back of the coin should be pictured, as the back often contains important information about the issuer, motif and hints to determine the age. Please follow the Picture Guidelines.

See also

• Coin collecting
• Coin identification
• Coin Variants
• Category:Coins by country