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Quote: "Worldwide collection"Here in the U.K. I hunt for commemorative coins mostly 50 pence pieces and £2 pound coins The most desirable here are the 2011 Olympic 50p series for the 2012 London Olympics and 2009 Kew Gardens 50p. For 2 pound coins the most desirable coins are the 2002 Commonwealth games. Also I look for 50p NIFCs which are the shield designs 2009-11 2016, 2018 and 2020 and for 2 pound coins 2017-now are NIFCs.In canada I always search for silver 10 cent and 25 cent coins. there becoming harder and harder to find but every once and a while I get some.
Plus I do hunt the other denominations but on a smaller scale because the only thing you would look for is errors,NIFCs, Proofs, foreign coins and if you want to pre 1992 1p and 2p copper coins same as the 1982 US cents. Also I collect pre 2011 5p and 10ps because the mint changed the composition to a magnetic material from copper-nickel in 2011.
Quote: "legowww22223"Same here but on a smaller scale most of the lower denominations such as coins from 1 penny to 20 pence don't get checked as often as the higher denominations because you can find territories coins from Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Gibraltar and on rare occasions from the Falkland Islands and Saint Helena. The coins from those countries are lower minted so they are much harder to get and their currency is tied to the British pound.
Quote: "Worldwide collection"Here in the U.K. I hunt for commemorative coins mostly 50 pence pieces and £2 pound coins The most desirable here are the 2011 Olympic 50p series for the 2012 London Olympics and 2009 Kew Gardens 50p. For 2 pound coins the most desirable coins are the 2002 Commonwealth games. Also I look for 50p NIFCs which are the shield designs 2009-11 2016, 2018 and 2020 and for 2 pound coins 2017-now are NIFCs.
Plus I do hunt the other denominations but on a smaller scale because the only thing you would look for is errors,NIFCs, Proofs, foreign coins and if you want to pre 1992 1p and 2p copper coins same as the 1982 US cents. Also I collect pre 2011 5p and 10ps because the mint changed the composition to a magnetic material from copper-nickel in 2011.
In canada I always search for silver 10 cent and 25 cent coins. there becoming harder and harder to find but every once and a while I get some.
I always look for American coins because the exchange from American to Canadian is about $1.26. on average I find about $1.50 in American dimes, nickels and quarters. when I go on vacation I cash them into bills and exchange them back into Canadian dollars. world coins are so easy to find in canada because people always try to sneak in coins to make full rolls.







Quote: "legowww22223"Do you search for varieties, W mint marks , silver US coins, NIFCs and good condition older coins?
Just last year this is the amount of American coins I find in circulation here in Canada.
about $8.50 in quarters, $1.35 in nickels and $3.50 in dimes, in total $13.35 cents in American or 16 dollars Canadian . I also find 1 dollar American coins since there the same size and Lonnies.
last year I found one world coins a Kenya 1 shilling, first coin from Kenya
Quote: "Worldwide collection"
QuoteDo you search for varieties, W mint marks , silver US coins, NIFCs and good condition older coins?
Quote: "legowww22223"I’ve got 5 silver Dimes, 1 silver Quarter, 3 wheat cents several nickels oldest dateless buffalo nickel and several normal pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters mostly eagle back but I do have 4 state quarters and 1 national park quarter.
Quote: "Worldwide collection"
QuoteDo you search for varieties, W mint marks , silver US coins, NIFCs and good condition older coins?
oh yes for sure, I keep any nickels before 1964 and low minted quarters and dimes. unfortunately I never find any W and silvers. no NIFCs and no good conditions. only 1 bicentennial and 3 nickels ( a 1964, 1957 and 1954).
This past summer I received 3 large jars of Pennys and filled my penny album and my American wheat penny album. The remaning coins I cashed in for 16 dollars and the remaning American Pennys I am keeping till my next trip. out of my hunt I found 56 wheat Pennys, 34 king George Pennys, 1 British penny, 350 American Pennys, 1 Bermuda penny( first coin from Bermuda I found). my Pennys album is filled with most varieties and most coins are UNC.
Quote: "crownapple"I live in Canada, so silver still circulates (way less then in the states though), so that’s the obvious thing I keep an eye out for. But I also look for nice early loonies and toonies, coloured coins, and American stuff for when I go down there.I wish that the U.K. mint produce coloured circulating coins and good luck on finding some silver.👍
Quote: "AgIsSilver"I live in the US, so typically wheat pennies, pre 1960 nickels, anything foreign, the elusive W mintmark quarter (still haven't found oneI checked the mintage of the W quarters and they are around the 2 million mark while P and D ones are in the hundreds of millions. It’s funny about what we call hard to find and your version of hard to find because the mintage figures of most of your coins are in the late millions to the billions while your only get into the billions when a new a entire denomination gets replaced such as the 5 and 10 pence back in the 90s while the rarest coin in circulation is some of the A-Z 10ps which some of them are low as 60.000! that it twice as low as the Kew Gardens 50p.), and on the very rare occasion, silver.
Quote: "Worldwide collection"Canadian Pennys don't circulate anymore( since 2012 ) but banks still accept them and on occasion give them out. Most people keep there Pennys while few actually spend them. Many get wound up in donation bins or CoinStars.
Btw does Canadian cents still circulate as widespread as they used to be or they are hard to find because I watch a Canadian YouTuber who says he gets them customer wrapped from the bank and do you look out for any rare and special cents such as ones from Young head and back?
Quote: "legowww22223"Sometimes here we get US cents in our coin bags even though most of the foreigns are Jersey, Guernsey and islands that issue that size coin on rare occasions Romanian 10 Bani, New Zealand 10 cents and Japanese 1 yen show up in coin hunts every now and then.
Quote: "Worldwide collection"Canadian Pennys don't circulate anymore( since 2012 ) but banks still accept them and on occasion give them out. Most people keep there Pennys while few actually spend them. Many get wound up in donation bins or CoinStars.
Btw does Canadian cents still circulate as widespread as they used to be or they are hard to find because I watch a Canadian YouTuber who says he gets them customer wrapped from the bank and do you look out for any rare and special cents such as ones from Young head and back?
As for searching through Pennys, I always keep UNC dates, KG and young head coins, world coins and US coins. Recently when receiving Pennys hoards I search for world coins as there easier then old dates.
The most common world coins are euro 2 cent, US 1cent, Bermuda 1 cent, Barbados 1 cent, Bahamas 1 cent , British 1 cent ( And territories ), Newfoundland 1 cent, Jamaica 1 cent and Liberia 1 cent.

< The six denominations of Queen's Head coins still circulating today. Image taken from ChinaHao.com.
< The six "1997 commemorative" denominations still circulating today. Image taken from ChinaHao.com. Quote: "KS5331 Productions"Queen's Head coins are still circulating in Hong Kong, and I mainly look for these. So far I have pulled thousands out of circulation.Are most of the pre China rule circulating ones the Last portrait or you get a mix of the portraits?
< The six denominations of Queen's Head coins still circulating today. Image taken from ChinaHao.com.
The other series I try to look for is the 1997 commemorative issue. Most people believe that only 97,000 sets were produced and sold, however the government did release an undisclosed amount for general circulation, excluding the $10 coin which I STILL don't have. They are even rarer than Queen's Head coins, but I do have the opportunity to pull some out of circulation every once in a while.
< The six "1997 commemorative" denominations still circulating today. Image taken from ChinaHao.com.
Quote: "Worldwide collection"Are most of the pre China rule circulating ones the Last portrait or you get a mix of the portraits?There is a healthy mix of the second and third portraits, both recycled from coins in the UK. The second portrait was first seen on the 1975 twenty-cent and two-dollar coins and replaced by the third portrait (on all general circulating coins at least) by 1985. The third portrait was seen from 1985 to 1992, at which point coins bearing the Queen's head ceased to be minted in anticipation of Hong Kong's handover.
< A few of my own coins. Quote: "KS5331 Productions"Thanks for explaining.
Quote: "Worldwide collection"Are most of the pre China rule circulating ones the Last portrait or you get a mix of the portraits?There is a healthy mix of the second and third portraits, both recycled from coins in the UK. The second portrait was first seen on the 1975 twenty-cent and two-dollar coins and replaced by the third portrait (on all general circulating coins at least) by 1985. The third portrait was seen from 1985 to 1992, at which point coins bearing the Queen's head ceased to be minted in anticipation of Hong Kong's handover.
List of Queen Elizabeth portraits on UK coins
< A few of my own coins.
Quote: "worth"Now I am looking for 2021 coins, W mint marks (still haven't found one) and anything older (wheat pennies, pre 1964 nickels, etc.). Threre are a few 2020 Quarters I still need as well.Good luck on your hunts. For me the US coins I’ve got is 3 wheat cents a lot of copper and early zinc cents only one shield cent , all of my nickels are the pre 2003 design including a dateless buffalo nickel. Finally for my quarters and dimes got a couple in silver and for quarters they’re mostly eagle back quarters with only 4 state ones and one national park quarter.
Quote: "qwerty844448"Just dates I do not have. Seriously, coin hunting isn't fun here :((What’s the oldest coins that are commonly found in circulation because what I’ve found that even though that the modern coins are magnetic they are the same size as the ones from the 80s?
Quote: "Worldwide collection"hmmm, probably the 80s. They are quite common here so I do not usually get excited when I come across one.
Quote: "qwerty844448"Just dates I do not have. Seriously, coin hunting isn't fun here :((What’s the oldest coins that are commonly found in circulation because what I’ve found that even though that the modern coins are magnetic they are the same size as the ones from the 80s?
Quote: "qwerty844448"Interesting.
Quote: "Worldwide collection"hmmm, probably the 80s. They are quite common here so I do not usually get excited when I come across one.
Quote: "qwerty844448"Just dates I do not have. Seriously, coin hunting isn't fun here :((What’s the oldest coins that are commonly found in circulation because what I’ve found that even though that the modern coins are magnetic they are the same size as the ones from the 80s?
Quote: "PaulDeLucchi"I search for W mintmark on US quarters. Wheat cents and silver dimes and quarters. I have been searchng on and off the past 50 years. When i was a kid I used to get wheat cents all the time not so much anymore. Some of my better finds have been a 1926S wheat cent, a 1907 Indian head cent as change in a supermarket, 3 silver war nickels, 2 W west point mint quarters found last year and a beat up Mercury dime in the bushes!!! I have also on three occasions meet people at the coinstar and bought silver dimes from them for a dollar each. The silver doesnt get counted it goes in the change belowSorry for taking a long time to answer.
The past 4 or 5 years I have been searching currency looking for fancy notes and star notes. I found a radar note 2 months ago. Serial number reads the same backwards and forwards K 24133142, a repeater E 50515051 ,low digit and birthday note F 00001967 and a binary A 14141411
Quote: "Worldwide collection"Banknotes are a tough beast to tackle. They get pulled early on due to natural wear and tear, and even though there are less years to look out for (2009, 2013, and 2017 are the ONLY years in the past decade), there are ultimately more to find if you're a comprehensive collector.
Quote: "PaulDeLucchi"I search for W mintmark on US quarters. Wheat cents and silver dimes and quarters. I have been searchng on and off the past 50 years. When i was a kid I used to get wheat cents all the time not so much anymore. Some of my better finds have been a 1926S wheat cent, a 1907 Indian head cent as change in a supermarket, 3 silver war nickels, 2 W west point mint quarters found last year and a beat up Mercury dime in the bushes!!! I have also on three occasions meet people at the coinstar and bought silver dimes from them for a dollar each. The silver doesnt get counted it goes in the change belowSorry for taking a long time to answer.
The past 4 or 5 years I have been searching currency looking for fancy notes and star notes. I found a radar note 2 months ago. Serial number reads the same backwards and forwards K 24133142, a repeater E 50515051 ,low digit and birthday note F 00001967 and a binary A 14141411
In my opinion the US is the best place to hunt circulation coins due to the reason that they haven’t withdrawn any denomination for a long time and it must be nice to find silver there.
For notes do you look for older bills along side the other things you look for? Plus how much do you encounter a note from each decade of note like I know that the 3 recent issued notes are common 2009,13,17.



Quote: "Moneytane"One date stands out as rare and that is the 1997 $2 coin, most are heavily worn like this.Mine is comparable with yours. But apparently I must be happy I have one. And I just see now the middle part of the edge is indeed smaller in comparison with the other dates. I didn't notice that before.
Quote: "ngdawa"There's nothing to hunt in my country. We have 1 krona, 2 kronor, 5 kronor, and 10 kronor. 2 kronor comes in two dates, 2016 and 2019, the 1 krona and 5 kronor comes just in one date, 2016. That's it. But since no one is using, or accepting, cash anymore there's really not much to hunt.I feel for you, that makes New Zealand look like a coin hunters paradise!
Quote: "Moneytane"I feel for you, that makes New Zealand look like a coin hunters paradise!Yeah, it's really sad actually. And when the new babknites came out in 2016 I went out to hunt then down, and I got treated like a drug dealer from the employees of the bank. Then the bank manager came out and I had to answer a lot of questions about why I needed 6 pieces of the 1,000 kronor note, what I was going to do with it, etc. It was a real piece if work, but at least I got the full set in UNC. Now people are buying UNC notes for more than FV on auctions, since it's so difficult to get them. It's crazy, really? Would you buy a UNC NZ$ 10 note for NZ$25 + shipping? That's what we are doing here. Last night a lot of 10 UNC 500 SEK notes were sold for 6,800 SEK + shipping.
Quote: "Moneytane"I am assuming your in Sweden, as my collection of Icelandic, Danish and Norwegian coins have more denominations and all my Swedish is 1980s or older!Yes, I'm in Sweden. We got rid of the subunit Öre in 2009, which then left us with the denominations of 1, 5, 10 kronor. When the new coins were introduced in 2016 they reintroduced the denomination 2 kronor, which hadn't been around since 1966. The 10 kronor coin wasn't remade, but kept circulating as it were, so there you can find a few varieties. There's only one variety I don't have of the 10 kronor coin.
I always hunt for replacement notes.
It may sound crazy, but here in the Netherlands I'm always hunting for Fly-IN, Wheat and Memorial cents!
Dutchgalego
It may sound crazy, but here in the Netherlands I'm always hunting for Fly-IN, Wheat and Memorial cents!
Do you ever find US cents in change?
jc'scoins
Dutchgalego
It may sound crazy, but here in the Netherlands I'm always hunting for Fly-IN, Wheat and Memorial cents!
Do you ever find US cents in change?
Oh yes, definately. Not only USA cents but also 1 euro and 2 euro look a like coins from countries as Albania, Turkey and even Thailand (10 baht). Nowadays the 1 penny Uk coins still go as 5 euro cent coins.
The USA cents do have almost the same size as the 2 eurocent coins. Alas we dont use the 1 and 2 eurocents coins in the Netherlnds anymore and the hunting for USA findings did run dry.
Thankfully there is still enough stuff (Wheat and Indian heads) to buy at the local antique markets! It still feels like hunting, in a different but definitely joyful way.
Mexico:
10 nuevos pesos 1992-1995 with silver center
10 pesos 2007 with inverted ornament
10 pesos 2012 Puebla
5 pesos 2008-2010: low mintage regular and commemorative ones
I see mostly Bahraini coins
It is a real treat when you go to Madinah (A Muslim Pilgrimage City)
People from over 150+ Countries go there
Sometimes a 50 Malaysian Sen or a 10 Euro Cent might land in your pocket because Saudi Coins are also yellow, LOL
In the US, I look for:
- 1964 and earlier 90% “constitutional” silver (dimes, quarters, and halves)
- WWII 35% silver nickels (1942-1945)
- key dates (year/mint mark combinations with low mintage, usually <10 million)
- older designs of base metal coins (wheat cents, Indian head cents, buffalo and V nickels)
- 2019-W and 2020-W quarters
- proofs/NIFCs (Not Intended for Circulation) - basically, stuff that was struck for collectors, but ended up in circulation. The most common examples are 1987 and 2002-2021 half dollars, coins from broken up mint/proof sets, etc
- various errors (double-die, rotation, off-center, die chip, etc)
- occasional foreign coins that get into US coin rolls (mostly Canadian, but I've come across various Caribbean Island, Panamanian, and South American coins that have dimensions identical to US coinage)
Some people even go so far as to pull out 1982 and earlier copper pennies, since the copper in them is worth more than a cent. Personally, I've never bothered with that.
I gone through a few boxes of each denomination (cent - half dollar) this year. Found:
- quite a few wheat cents (average 10-15 per box), mostly 1940s and 50s
- 2 Mercury dimes
- 2 silver Roosevelt dime
- 1936 buffalo nickel
- 1939-D and 1942-D nickels (key dates)
- 2 dimes with off-center strikes (clipped legend)
- 3 2019-W quarters (2 with the same design)
- 2 quarters with die chips (2021 and 2022)
- 1 proof 1982-S half
- a bunch of NIFC halves (they don't have much value, so I've only kept the years/mint marks I didn't already have)
- 20+ Canadian coins (mostly cents)
Today I don't hunt anything from circulation (germany / €).
Until 2001 I kept from circulation all 2 Pfennig coins, which were made of copper until 1967. I'm having 350-400 of them in a plastic bottle.
After introduction of € I needed some years to get most of the circulating coins and stopped then to turn the coins in my pocket.
Here in Canada I look for:
Amraan Amjad
I see mostly Bahraini coins
It is a real treat when you go to Madinah (A Muslim Pilgrimage City)
People from over 150+ Countries go there
Sometimes a 50 Malaysian Sen or a 10 Euro Cent might land in your pocket because Saudi Coins are also yellow, LOL
Interesting
MoneytaneNew Zealand, we are little limited for choice overall as our coins are not that old or exciting.
We only ever issued 2 commemoratives and both disappeared in nanoseconds to reappear on Trade Me (Kiwi Ebay)![]()
Both are rare now and seldom seen in change.
For the 10c, 20c and 50c there are a few limited coins - they have only been minted since 2006 and its amazing how many 20c and 50c dated 2006 you an find that are still basically UNC. 10 cents are harder and the shiny ones only go back a few years.
The only real variety is the Wide date 2014 20 cents, 5x more scarce than the narrow date, but not rare in any sense of the word.![]()
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One slightly better date is 2007 10 cents piece as well, a 2nd year coin and less common too.
With the gold coloured $1 and $2 coins, these at least go back to 1990, but minting was very erratic until the 2000s and even now a new date is released only every 2 to 3 years on average.
One date stands out as rare and that is the 1997 $2 coin, most are heavily worn like this.![]()
Shown here with the obselete 1997 5c and 10c coins.
The coin was minted in South Africa instead of the royal mint in Wales and had a slightly thinner rim and flatter edge than the 1990/91 coins in circulation. Only 1 million were minted (Most years saw 5 - 30 million) and the coins were rejected from pokie machines (Fruit/gambling machines) and Food vending machines - causing all sorts of stress, so the banks try to withdraw them in early 1998. When people heard that - hoarding began and you seldom see them in change today. Mine was bought off a friend who had saved $700 in change over years!
Otherwise I basically just put aside the shiniest coin of each year for my collection and keep spares of some dates for swaps and trades.
I remember getting a 1997 $2 in change a few weeks ago after buying chewy tape at the dairy, I put it in trade me for $3 and no one bought it, will still keep checking my $2's for them though.
I have all years and all know varieties of the circulating coins in my country, so I guess none. 🤷♂️
Stefan0205
Today I don't hunt anything from circulation (germany / €).
Until 2001 I kept from circulation all 2 Pfennig coins, which were made of copper until 1967. I'm having 350-400 of them in a plastic bottle.
After introduction of € I needed some years to get most of the circulating coins and stopped then to turn the coins in my pocket.
I used to put aside all my 1p & 2p modern UK coins up to 1981, just because they were made of bronze and I thought they would be more valuable sometime in the future. I then found a couple of modern coins that I'd lost in the garden a few years ago, but where the bronze ones came out of the ground in reasonably good condition, the more modern coins were barely recognizable.
Not so sure now whether the bronze ones will be more valuable in 40/50 years time. Certainly, the metal content is more valuable at the moment, but the rarity of the current multi-layered pressed coins might well mean that their value will eventually overtake the solid metal types. A pity I won't be around to find out.
Any thoughts?
I put away every 2 Euro commemorative I receive in change. Not for collecting, as I have them all, but for saving. Once in a while, when it is about to afford something special, they get changed and spent.
As it is about one of five that I get, it is not every 2 Euro coin, which would quickly sum up and no rare occasion which would make saving become very slow, but just right.
Here in southern Germany it is about 80% German - but still back until the early ones from 2006 once in a while. The rest from all the other countries. Just last week I found a Greek Olymic from 2004.
In the beginning I put them all in my swap list only to realize no one really wanted them. Either people have them already or do not want them in used condition. So I only add only the very recent ones where there is some demand of course.
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