How to Sell Foreign & World Coins in Southern Oregon

World coins are one of the broadest categories we buy. The pile in front of us at an appointment might be a tin of grandfather's leftover travel currency, a folder of Mexican pesos collected by a relative who lived in Guadalajara, a set of British silver from the 1900s, a few French Napoleon-era coins from an estate, and a couple of modern Maple Leafs from a more recent purchase. They don't all pay the same way, but most of them pay something real.

The honest baseline: most world coins we buy are priced on silver or gold content. That math alone, on a typical mixed pile, usually adds up to a meaningful check at today's metal prices. A smaller subset — specific series with collector demand, condition rarities, and certain pre-modern issues — carries premium on top of the metal. That category is real but isn't the bulk of what we see, and we'd rather tell you that up front than have it land at the appointment.

Here's what we're going to cover, in order:

1. What counts as a world coin — and the line between world coins, world bullion, and ancients.
2. Silver-content world coins — the workhorse category most American households have without realizing it.
3. Mexican silver specifically — one of the largest silver series in the world and one of the categories sellers most often underestimate.
4. Pre-1920 European silver — British, French, German, Austrian, Italian, Spanish — almost all of it pays.
5. World gold coins — British sovereigns, French francs, Mexican pesos, Swiss helvetias.
6. Asian and South American notes — what's worth bringing and what tends to disappoint.
7. Why we can't quote raw foreign coins over the phone — same condition-and-grade problem as US coins.
8. Cleaning destroys value — the universal rule.
9. Why local matters for world coins — especially when you're holding pieces that crossed an ocean to get to you.
10. What to bring — the whole pile, sorted only by what's easy.

Then a quick recap at the end so you walk in knowing what to expect.

What counts as a world coin

For our purposes, a “world coin” is anything minted outside the United States and produced in the modern era — roughly the 16th century onward. The category overlaps two others, and the distinction matters at the evaluation table:

• World coins — the focus of this guide. Circulated and collected coinage from foreign mints, priced on a mix of metal content and collector demand.
• World bullion — modern sovereign coins designed primarily as investment products (Canadian Maple Leafs, South African Krugerrands, Mexican Libertads, Austrian Philharmonics). These are priced as bullion. See the bullion guide for that math.
• Ancient coins — Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and other pre-modern issues. Priced on attribution, condition, and patina rather than metal content. Different evaluation entirely; we'll have a separate guide for those.

If you're unsure which category your pieces fall into, don't worry about it. Bring everything and we sort it at the appointment.

Silver-content world coins: the workhorse category

Most foreign coins we see fall into this bucket. Before roughly 1965 — the same global cutoff that affected US 90% silver coinage — almost every country in the world produced its circulating coinage in real silver. The fineness varied (.720, .800, .835, .900, .917, .925), but the metal was real and the weights were substantial.

Common categories that show up in Rogue Valley estates and family collections:

• British silver 1800s through 1946 — florins, half-crowns, shillings, sixpence, threepence. .500 fine after 1920, .925 fine before. The earlier the year, the higher the silver content per coin.
• Canadian silver 1858 through 1967 — dimes, quarters, halves, dollars. .800 fine through 1919, .925 fine 1858–1919 for some series, then .800 fine through 1967.
• Mexican silver — covered in its own section below.
• French silver — 5-franc, 2-franc, 1-franc, 50-centimes pieces from the 1800s through World War I. Mostly .835 or .900 fine.
• German silver — 5-mark, 3-mark, 2-mark pieces. .900 fine standard for the Empire era.
• Italian silver — lire denominations from unification through the early 20th century.
• Spanish silver — pesetas, reales, duros from the 1800s.
• Austrian silver — thalers, gulden, kronen. Maria Theresa restrike thalers are still being produced and carry almost pure bullion-grade silver content.

We weigh by series and pay on the silver content. Pieces with collector interest beyond melt — specific dates, mint marks, low mintages, or strong condition — get evaluated individually.

Mexican silver specifically

Mexico has one of the deepest silver-coinage histories of any country, and Mexican silver pesos are one of the categories Rogue Valley sellers most often have without realizing the value. Three broad eras to know:

• Colonial-era reales (roughly 1530s through 1821) — the original “pieces of eight,” struck under Spanish rule at the Mexico City mint. These are scarce in any condition and carry real numismatic premium, particularly for early dates and clear mintmarks. Bring intact.
• Republic era (1822 onward) — pesos and centavos struck through the late 1960s. Most are .720, .800, .900, or .903 fine silver depending on series. Common-date Republic-era pesos sell on silver content; specific dates and varieties carry premium.
• Modern silver Libertads (1982 onward) — .999 fine silver bullion, priced as bullion at metal weight. Some proof years and low-mintage commemoratives hold premium. See the bullion guide.

We see Mexican silver more often than almost any other foreign category, partly because of the Rogue Valley's deep historical connection to Mexico and partly because the silver content survives even when the collector premium doesn't. Bring it all; we sort by era at the table.

Pre-1920 European silver

Almost all European silver coinage struck before World War I is real silver in usable purity, and most of it has been quietly stored in drawers for a century by families that didn't know what they had. Even common-date issues from this period have meaningful silver content per piece because the underlying coins were heavier and finer than what came later.

Series that come up regularly and pay well even at common dates:

• British Victorian-era florins, half-crowns, and crowns.
• French 5-franc pieces from Napoleon III, the Republic, and earlier.
• German Empire 5-mark, 3-mark, 2-mark pieces from the major states.
• Austrian gulden and early thalers.
• Spanish duros from the 1800s.
• Italian lire and ducal-state coinage from before unification.
• Russian silver rubles from the Empire era.

Condition matters for collector premium on these; metal content does not depend on condition. Even worn examples are worth their silver.

World gold coins

Pre-modern world gold has been part of how international wealth has moved for centuries. The pieces we see most often:

• British sovereigns — the workhorse world gold coin. .917 fine, just under a quarter ounce of gold each, produced from 1817 through today. Common-date sovereigns sell on metal content; pre-1900 issues, full sets, and certain mintmarks (London vs. branch mints) carry premium.
• French 20-franc pieces (“Napoleons”) — .900 fine, about 0.19 oz of gold. Struck heavily through the 1800s and into the early 1900s. Common-date pieces sell on metal weight.
• Mexican gold pesos — 50-peso, 20-peso, 10-peso, 5-peso, and 2-peso denominations from the Republic and modern eras. The 50-peso Centenario is a heavily traded 1.2-troy-ounce bullion piece. Older pesos carry both metal and numismatic value.
• Swiss helvetias and German gold marks — pre-WWI Continental gold, .900 fine. Common-date pieces sell on metal.
• South African Krugerrands — modern bullion; see the bullion guide.

World gold authenticates the same way US gold does: weight, dimensions, ping test, and XRF when needed. We do all of that at the appointment.

Asian and South American: what's worth bringing

Asian and South American world coinage is a more uneven category than European or North American. Pre-1900 Chinese cash coins, Japanese shoguns-era silver, and Spanish-Colonial pieces from Peru and Bolivia have real collector markets — some of them substantial. Modern Asian and South American base-metal coinage typically does not.

Our recommendation: bring whatever you have. The pre-modern silver and gold pieces from these regions are worth the trip by themselves, and the modern base-metal pieces don't cost you anything extra to evaluate. We're happy to sort.

Why we can't quote raw foreign coins over the phone

Same problem as US coins, with one extra layer.

For most raw world coins, value comes down to condition and grade. We can't see surface wear, original luster, or hairlines from a past polish over a phone description. That's the universal coin-pricing problem. The additional layer for world coins: many of them have multiple denomination, mintmark, and variety distinctions that aren't always obvious without the coin in hand and the references on the table. A 1908 Mexican peso struck at one mint can be worth a fraction of the same coin struck at another. We catch that kind of thing in person.

The exceptions we can quote ballpark by phone:

• Modern world bullion — Maple Leafs, Krugerrands, Libertads, Pamp Suisse bars. Standardized products, spot-based math.
• Slabbed (PCGS, NGC, ANACS) foreign coins — grade is fixed and printed, so we can work from the holder.

Cleaning destroys value

Same rule as US coins: do not clean foreign coins. Even gentle polishing leaves hairlines that an experienced eye sees immediately, and a cleaned coin loses its collector premium and sells at metal weight only. The patina on an old Mexican peso or French 5-franc piece is part of how the coin is graded. Leave it on. If you have doubts, bring the coin in dirty rather than clean — we'd rather see it as you found it.

See the US coins guide for the longer version of why this matters and the specific stories we've seen.

Why local matters for world coins

World coins are easy to mail and hard to authenticate from a photo, which is exactly why the mail-in market for them is noisy. National online buyers and certain auction-style platforms quote numbers that look strong on the screen, and sometimes the actual transaction reflects those numbers. Often it doesn't — especially for world coins where condition, variety, and authenticity require an in-person evaluation. The trade-offs we want you to think through before you ship anything:

• Shipping and insurance come out of your pocket. A meaningful pile of world silver or gold can't go in a regular envelope. Insured mail costs real money, and that cost comes out of your offer before you even know what the offer is.
• The transit risk is yours. A lost shipment of coins is a months-long claim process where you carry the burden of proof on each piece and its condition.
• You lose financial privacy. Every online coin transaction creates a digital record attached to your name, address, and exactly which precious metal pieces left your possession. That record lives somewhere indefinitely. An in-person transaction with us creates only the record Oregon law requires for the transaction itself.
• You don't build a relationship. Foreign coin collections often grow over generations. The relationship you build with a shop you can call again next year — when more of the estate is sorted, when a relative passes the next piece down, when market conditions shift — is one of the most useful things a local seller has.

We aren't here to say online is bad; there are reputable online coin buyers and the platforms have their place. The point is that the headline number on an online offer isn't apples-to-apples with an in-person offer once the costs, the risk, and the relationship come off the top. We've been in the Rogue Valley since 1997, including through the years when most of the precious-metals industry moved online or closed during the pandemic. Local relationships, local trust, and local hands on the actual coins are what we offer.

What to bring to your appointment

• All of it. Loose coins, folders, albums, jars, cigar boxes, slabbed pieces, original paper currency from foreign countries (we buy that too in some cases). There's no minimum and no extra charge for evaluating additional items.
• Any paperwork — original purchase receipts, inventory lists, dealer envelopes, certificates from foreign grading services. Helpful but not required.
• Photo ID. Oregon requires it for precious-metals transactions.

You don't need to identify the coins, look up dates, or pre-sort by country. That's exactly what we're set up to do quickly.

Quick recap before you come in

In short, here's everything we just covered:

• Most world coins are priced on silver or gold content. Common-date pre-1965 silver from any country sells on metal weight at today's spot. A smaller subset of collector premium pieces gets evaluated individually.
• Mexican silver and pre-1920 European silver are the two largest categories Rogue Valley sellers have without realizing it. Both pay well at today's silver prices.
• World gold — sovereigns, francs, pesos, helvetias — trades on metal content with collector premium on older or sealed pieces.
• Modern world bullion (Maples, Libertads, Krugerrands) is covered separately in the bullion guide. Bring it at the same appointment.
• Don't clean foreign coins. Universal rule. Cleaning drops a collector-value piece to metal weight only.
• We can't quote raw foreign coins by phone, but we can talk ballpark for slabbed pieces, modern bullion, and bulk silver by weight. Call us; a real person will follow up the same business day.
• Local matters more than the headline number suggests. Shipping costs, transit risk, financial privacy, and the relationship with a shop you can call again — none of those show up on an online offer page, but they're real value.

That's the playbook. We'll go through every piece individually, show you the math, and make an offer. You're free to accept it, decline it, or sleep on it — there's no fee for the evaluation either way.

Ready to schedule?

Call our Ashland location at (541) 482-3715 or our Grants Pass location at (541) 955-2985, or use the contact form and we'll get back to you the same business day.

Bringing US coins, sterling, gold jewelry, or bullion at the same appointment? We evaluate everything in one sitting. See our category pages for Foreign Coins, US Coins, Ancient Coins, and Bullion for what we look for in each.