Pocket Change

DesertRat

My wife has travelled extensively throughout the world (pre-EU) and when she would get home she would throw her "pocket change" leftover from the trip in a jar. Not a lot of stuff and mostly 1975 and above dates and again this was before the EU formed.

I was just looking through the jar and found this coin and another like it dated 1955.

Given that I am new to this stuff, can you tell me what metal these were struck in? It seems to have very nice definition for a circulated coin.

I'm assuming this is a British coin?

wybrit

It's a cupro-nickel British florin, or "2-bob bit." The coins have essentially no value in VF or less, but are worth a buck each in EF. All British "silver" coins were struck in Cu-Ni from 1947 onwards, with the exception of maundy money.

DesertRat

Thanks.

In the coin above, there are virtually no signs of wear on the reverse with all the details readily visible on the flowers? The obverse has a only a few hits on the bust and one in the field at 9:00. Otherwise I would say this coin is easily higher than EF or would be MS (?).

wybrit

It's hard to discern from the pictures. The Mary Gillick portrait of EIIR is notoriously weakly struck so it's tough to tell. Mint state valuation is around $6 for the '63 and $10 for the '55.