Calling all Guru's

[kimbo11 11]

Hi.

I would like to know more about these coins please and if there is a market for something like this n BoB?

 

Thank you

 

Edit: Also is there some rule of thumb, when a silver coins is silver? I have a boatload of silver coins but dont know when it is silver or nickel.

Edited August 18, 2011 by kimbo11

[kimbo11 11]

Please, i really need some help.

[Guest Guest]

Hi Kimbo

 

It really is hard to give you a definitive answer. The older the "silver" coins the more likely they are to be silver and not some alloy like nickle. However silver coins do have a distinctive sound when knocked together.. see the second video below, and if you want to get technical see the first video.

 

here are some helpful videos...

 

 

In South Africa all union silver coins have a percentage of silver in them - 50% post 1950 and 80% before 1951.

 

But this varies from country to country ... the best bet is to identify what the coin is and, if you don't have a world coin book, then search the Internet and see if you can find out more there.

 

PS the bottom two coins in your post above have a percentage of silver.. do a Google search to find out how much.

 

Hope this helps

 

Kind regards

 

Scott Balson

Edited August 19, 2011 by ndoa18

[Guest Guest]

Using Audacity to identify the percentage of silver in a coin

 

Further to my post above I did my own tests on the claims of the first video - using Audacity.

 

Dropping a coin next to my headset microphone while recording it and then using the the Analyse option of Plot Spectrum gave very distinctive differences between 50% and 80% silver coins. I tested several South African 3d, 2/- and 5/- ...

 

The results can be seen below. Obviously you need to have the same hard surface to drop the coins on to and try and keep the height regular as possible... (these variables will impact on where the peaks appear) but the rest is just science.. click on the thumbnails below

 

a typical 50% 3d compared with a 80% silver 3d

 

a typical 50% 2/- compared with a 80% silver 2/-

 

a typical 50% 5/-

 

the 50% silver coins were clearly higher up the kHz chart

 

So if you have old South African coins you cannot identify by year the silver in them will help and also allow you to correctly list them as 50% or 80% .. its all in the sound!

 

You can download Audacity software FREE at this link: Audacity: Download

 

Kind regards

 

Scott Balson

Edited August 20, 2011 by ndoa18

[kimbo11 11]

Hi Scott

 

Thank you for your detailed post, your post will make it allot easier to group the coins. Yes i have a world coin book so i will look in that for the foreign coins. I have plenty South African silver coins that are so faded that i can not group them by date, i never thought the sound will come into play.

Thank you

 

Regarding the coins in the scan, do you think there iss a market on BoB for foreign coins like that?

 

Thank you again for your help

[Pierre_Henri 21]

PS the bottom two coins in your post above have a percentage of silver.

 

Nope - the Rhodesian coin contains no silver.

 

Its very simple - learn the dates the various countries stopped minting silver coins for general circulation purposes as soon as possible. in my line of work I at least know the top 10 countries by heart - here we go (last silver mintage coins) - there are obviously exceptions for later dated higher denomination coins & and exceptions here and there ...

 

South Africa - 1964

Great Britain - 1946

Rhodesia -1946

Australia - 1963

USA (1964) later base silver

Canada - 1967

Mozambique - 1966 (to 5 Escudos)

New Zealand - 1946

Switzerland -1967

Netherlands - 1966

France - 1920

 

Some countries like Portugal and Germany are difficult - change overs from silver to nickel occurred over a long period and differs for denomination to denomination.

 

Always do your home work first, but as a rule of thumb, 1946 is the cut of date for Britain and some of the commonwealth countries.

 

Regards

 

Pierre

Edited August 20, 2011 by Pierre_Henri

[kimbo11 11]

Thank you Pierre

[Patricia_Gert 10]

Hi Kimbo,

 

Another "simple" test: Nickel is highly magnetic and silver is not magnetic. So if a coin stick to a magnet it is not silver. Just take note that some countries also made aluminium coins which is also not magnetic.

 

Kind Regards

Gert

[Guest Guest]

Just take note that some countries also made aluminium coins which is also not magnetic.

 

You can quickly identify aluminium coins because they are so light when compared with other "silver" coins of a similar size.

 

Hope all this stuff has helped.

 

Kind regards

 

Scott Balson

[kimbo11 11]

Thank you all the Guru's for the useful information. Let the big sorting begin