Help Required With Pre-Decimal Australian And British Coins

we have no idea what you mean by very worn, worn, good condition or okay condition not trying to be mean but collects don't use that as a scale. Yeah if you want a melt value that is to say the intrinsic valuation, man are you going to be sad, if you want people to give you an rough estimate we would need pictures.

As it stands I would say $100-115 ish if your lucky (and they don't be shifty) more likely 50-75. Not in the thousand like you probably hoped (many are proofs prices that you see on the interwebs).

and stacks of other coins?

An example of what ryurazu is talking about: when coin collectors use the term "Good condition" (usually spelled with a capital G), they really mean a rather badly worn coin; "Good" is down at the bottom end of the grading scale. What you've labelled "good" is probably what coin collectors would call Extremely Fine - though we'd need to see some pics, to compare scales.

As for "how to sell", your options are to take them to a coin dealer, or try to sell them on ebay or similar. The coin dealer has the advantage of being quick, simple and hassle-free, but has the disadvantage of not offering "full value". You're likelier to get "better value" on ebay, but it is more stress and hassle with creating listings, dealing with customer queries, postage, and potential bad bidders; I personally wouldn't recommend it unless you were already an experienced eBayer or have someone in the family who can do it for you. At this stage I would normally also suggest a coin auction house, but auction houses typically have a minimum consignment value of around $1000, and I don't think your hoard will reach that level.

As for specifics on the listed coins:

- Australian pennies: I don't see anything here that stands out. Dealers will typically pay bulk rates for such coins, buying and selling by the kilogram.
- Australian 3d, 6d, shillings and florins: these are all silver and this will be where the bulk of your value lies. Australian coins dated 1946 or earlier are sterling silver, coins 1947 and later are .500 fine.
- British coins: the 6d is sterling (.925) silver, the 2 shilling is cupronickel and the halfcrown is .500 silver.
- The Isle of Man crown is not made of silver, it's commemorating the silver jubilee.
- The "stacks of coins of no value" likely will have some value, at the bulk rate. If it's mixed world coins, it can be worth your while looking them up and fishing out the silver; a coin dealer is going to assume there's no silver in there and offer the bulk rate accordingly.

Some general advice:
- Pick out anything green, corroded or badly damaged. These coins have negative value, when included in a bulk lot.
- Don't clean anything. Cleaned coins are undesirable and worth less than uncleaned coins.

Thanks for your help folks

The terminology is certainly different!

Hubby & I have had time to take some photos.

Here's a 1927 Australian Florin





A 1937 Australian Half Crown



A 1905 Half Penny - not sure if it is British or Australian?



A 1922 Australian Penny



Some feedback on these will help us to get a better idea of the grading terminology.

ebay is not a dark art in this household!

So if that is the best return, then it's time spent productively.

With COVID and lock-downs and travel, trying to find a dealer would be a challenge, as we live about 5 hours away from Sydney in a small town.

As for the "green" remark - are you referring to this type of thing?

1926 Australian Penny



1956 Australian Penny



Or more of this type of thing?

1966 Australian Two Shillings



Some of the copper coins have partial green marks like this:-

1956 Australian Penny



In terms of discolouration, a couple of the silver coins are quite black:-

1943 Australian Three Pence



We have more photos if that is of interest, or will help, but didn't want to clog up the place!

Thanks for the help.

Roo Penny

Unfortunately, that one is quite worn, as well as having been polished. I doubt you'd find too many people prepared to pay above bullion value for it.


As NumisRob said, Australia never made halfcrowns (though most other sterling-using dominions of the Empire did). This one is British, and is .500 fine silver.


British again, as noted above. As a general rule, coins from anywhere else except Britain usually have the country name on them. Every Australian coin (except for gold sovereigns) has the word "Australia" on it.


This one also is quite worn, as well as apparently having been polished. The green spots on both sides are the killer, though.


Yes, all of those have nasty corrosion, and aren;t going to be of interest to a collector - those that are completely covered in green corrosion are probably ground finds, or metal detector finds. But as I mentioned above, that 1922 penny also had green spots, on both sides. On the reverse, around the "F" of "OF", and on the obverse, above the "D.G.". Those are both large and obvious enough to render this coin undesirable. Any green corrosion on a copper coin, anywhere, renders all but the rarest coin types worthless, I'm afraid. There are chemicals you can use to take the green off, but they usually make the coin look even worse.


Black on silver coins is perfectly fine. Don't clean them! Though that threepence seems to have a worse case than normal - it might have been in a fire.


As noted above, this coin doesn't have "Australia" on it, so it's not Australian. This one is also British. I can;t show you what an Australian 2 shilling 1966 coin looks like, because Australia stopped making 2 shilling coins in 1964. British "silver" coins made after 1946 do not contain any silver, so this one's of minimal collector interest, especially given that one side (once again) seems to have been polished.