Grandpa's Coin Purse

Hello ShellyB
If you can post pictures of the coins I'm sure the people on this site could identify all of them and give you an opinion as to grade and value. We'd love to see them!

to the Community!

...but we still want photos, even if you pick up some reference books!

The dime bears further looking - none were minted between 1815-1819, nor were Half Dimes.

I see nothing in his description to dismiss these coins as culls, with the possible exception of the coins with holes in them. But he makes no mention of which or how many are holed. (And some coins even with holes can have value depending on the date and rarity.

Like Superdave said, there is no 1817 dime, so we need more info on that.

One bit of advise Shelly, DON'T clean them.

Other than that all I can say is that we need a better list of what is there, grades and/or pictures.

Thank you all for your quick response! I am taking Grandpa back to NY tomorrow and will enlist the help of my dad to get the photos of the coins posted. His camera has better resolution than mine! We have not (and will not based on several people's advice) cleaned the coins. I will do some rubbings from them too, as that may give better detail since they are very dirty.

On closer inspection of the dime (wish I had a magnifying glass) it may be 1813...not 1817. The side with the date has a unidentifiable profile and the reverse has a wreath of sorts with the words "ONE DIME" centered one word over the other in the middle of the wreath. But that being said, I'll have Dad post pictures for review.

Thanks again for the feedback. Grandpa seems really excited about the prospect of learning more about them.

The coins that our grandparents owned and give to us are worth far more than any book ever says. I have a collection of coins from England, France, and Belgium that my grandfather brought back from WWI. I gave one to my cousin, knowing that it was a good luck charm that would guarantee his safe return from Iraq, which it did. Now two generations of our family have carried that coin safely out of a war zone.
These coins are worth more to me than any shiny pieces of gold or silver that I bought with money.
When you mentioned that many of your grandfather's coins were either tarnished, difficult to read, or "holed", it makes it sound like they might not have a whole lot of "book" value. Of course, rare dates or varieties can be worth a lot of money even if they have some kind of damage.
I think many of us are interested in the dime you mentioned. The U.S. dimes didn't start using a wreath with "one dime" inside it until the "Seated Liberty" series in 1837. Prior to that, dimes had an image of a large eagle on the reverse. The obverse of the 1837 & later dimes have a full sized figured of liberty sitting down. Prior to that, the "Bust" dime had a close up profile of Miss Liberty's face. If you have a close up of a face, combined with a "wreath" reverse, then we'll have to consult Dr. Judd's pattern book to see exactly what you have.