What Are They And Are They Silver?

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Hi,
The first group are Greek, all cupro-nickel (CuNi)
There's a CuNi Ireland 3 pence (w/rabbit)
The 1946 NZ 3 pence is .500 silver
The last coin, an Egyptian/Ottoman 5 Quirsh is probably CuNi

A time-saving tip: any coin that says Pfennig, Cent, Centimes, Centavos, Ore, Penni, are usually not silver, being the fractional denomination. You're more likely with coins bearing denoms such as Frank, Mark, Peso, Dollar, Kroner, Markkaa, and the older UK Commenwealth coins such as 3 Pence, 6 Pence, Shilling, Florin, Crown, etc. That's an incomplete list.

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KurtS's rule-of-thumb has many exceptions: there are plenty of cents, centavos etc that are made of silver, and plenty of dollars, pesos, shillings etc that are not.

Another very broad rule-of-thumb is age; the older the coin, the more likely it is to contain silver. A "silver-looking" coin from the mid-1800's or earlier is almost certainly silver; one from the early 1900's (prior to WWI) is probably silver, one from up to the 1960's might be silver, and anything from 1970 onwards that seems to have been in circulation is almost definitely not going to be silver.

Another good rule: if a "silver-looking" coin has a hole in the middle of it (like your Belgium 5 centimes and 25 centimes, coins #6 and #7), it probably isn't silver; many European countries used such holes to make it plain to people that these coins were not silver.

These are all general rules of thumb, and all have exceptions; you really need to find out the specific circumstances of each country's coinage to know for sure which coins had silver in them.

BTW, Coin 8 is a halfpenny from Jamaica, made of cupronickel. Coin #9 is a 5 pfennig from Germany, and made of iron. Of the 10 coins pictured, only this one should fly to a magnet.

If you'd like to do some research yourself for the coins that are easier to identify, buy or borrow a Krause catalogue. If you're interested in collecting world coins, you'd probably want to get your hands on a Krause catalogue anyway. Highly recommended reading.

There's also a website run by the people that print the catalogues, called NumisMaster. If you register with them (for free), you can look up their database, which will tell you what the coins are made of. If you want to know catalogue values, you have to subscribe with them (for a monthly or annual fee).