world coins silver contents?

Hobbit

new to looking a world coins ,do most of them have the same silver content as US coins or are they much lower

Philip

Depends.

JohnZ

Do you mean fineness? US silver coins are in general .900 fine. There are some exceptions, like SAE's, which are .999 fine.

World coins exhibit a wide variety of alloys. I have various European coins that came in .500, .625, .750, and .900 fine. Each of these alloys has a distinctive "look", and a distinctively different way of toning. For instance, .500 silver can get naturally very dark. I have some British florins and half-crowns that I bought specifically for their unusual colors.

tbirde56

World silver coins have ranged in fineness from .100 (10%) to .999 (99.9%). Very low grade silver is called billon. Some more widespread standards have been .835 fine and .925 fine. You might try a library for a copy of the Standard Catalog of World Coins for pictures, values and lots more interesting info.

Philip

Which reminds me.... what is the range of silver content that is considered to be a billon coin? I have a Turkish para that has 17% silver content and is listed as silver and another one that is listed as billon.

tbirde56

Merriam-Webster states: 'an alloy of silver containing more than 50 percent of copper by weight'.

newbiecollector

Excuse my ignorance but, how do you find out one of your coins is 17% silver content ?

coinnerd

what is the range of silver content that is considered to be a billon coin?

Billion is less than 10% usually closer to 5%. Just enough to give a coin a silver color when new, but not enough to make it worth melting.

newbiecollector

Here is a short definition I took off a site I use to help me understand a little about metals used in coinage.

Billon
Alloy
An alloy of copper and silver, with more than half copper. Large quantities of billon coins were produced in the Roman era, many with a silver wash. This alloy was also used by the French during the 18th century

cacheman

<< <i>Billon >>



Do you think these were what Carl Sagen collected? Billions and billions...................

Philip

<< <i>Excuse my ignorance but, how do you find out one of your coins is 17% silver content ? >>



That's what Krause says... I personally have no idea how to measure a coin's silver content.

0john0

Hobbit, if you have specific coins in mind let us know and we can probably tell you the silve content based on what our Krause catalogs say.
-j

Hobbit

wasn't looking at any one coin, was looking to buy bulk world silver, but with such a range in fineness i question doing that

cladking

<< <i>wasn't looking at any one coin, was looking to buy bulk world silver, but with such a range in fineness i question doing that >>



It's really not that difficult but being fast with arithmetic is a definite plus.

I got started by pulling silver coins out of poundage back in the mid-'70's.
It's a "simple" matter of knowing all the various world coin series and their
fineness. It is much easier than it sounds since just a few rules are usually
necessary to know a whole country. Like Britain is sterling (.925) until 1920
and then it's .500. You'll also learn to be able to spot the different finenesses
by sight. While this isn't fool proof it will usually get you pretty close if you
can't remember one.

You can occasionally find a horde of a single coin too though this is unusual.
Some of these hordes can also be of infrequently seen types. There will be
a tendency to remember some of the commonly seen ASW's (actual silver
weight) which will streamline the process considerably.

Much of my interest in base metal coins grew out of the observation that many
times the silver coins are readily found but the base metal counterparts can be
almost impossible to locate and then they'll be horribly worn or unattractive.