Foreign coins silver content?

pupskweek

My son just gave me several foreign coins--Mexico, Phillipines, China, England, France--some others that I don't know what they are. How can I tell if they are really silver or not? They look like silver! I don't have a coin guru close by so I hope you gurus here can help me out--thanks!! Pups

XpipedreamR

That's really tough to answer without knowing what the coins are exactly. Actually, quite impossible. You could get the Krause guide to world coins and look each coin up to see what the composition is. If you know what silver coins sound like, I suppose you could toss each one on a hard table and listen for the sound. I probably wouldn't do that if you think they're valuable at all.