value in circulated commemorative coins

[biros]

Forgive my ignorances with respect to coins, I wish to find out if there is any increased value in the Australian coins that are currently in circulation that have other "pictures" on their "tales" side.
I have recently inherited a couple hundred dollars worth of coins and each coin has a non-standard depiction.
There doesn't appear to be any coins that I haven't seen in circulation myself before and I do understand that you can't know if there isn't one particularly rare coin within the collection without having each coin inspected.
As far as I'm aware the former owner merely set aside any coin that did not look like a standard coin.

Would these coins likely be worth any more than their face value?
Thank you in advance.

[Mister T]

Possibly, but probably not.
Anything that can be found in mint sets, baby sets, PNCs or any sort of packaging is probably only worth face value unless it's genuinely uncirculated and has no dings or scratches.
Anything that you can't get in packaging might be worth a bit more than face value if it's in uncirculated condition but there's probably a bit more tolerance for dings and scratches.
Any mint set only coins in good condition might pull a few dollars on ebay.

It's probably worth doing a quick list of what have and posting it here as well as having a look what's selling on ebay - doing up sets might be worthwhile if you have the patience but I don't sell on ebay so I don't know what sells and what doesn't.

[JeffH]

1991 ramshead 50¢ is worth keeping. Reasonable ones fetch $3 to $4 on eBay.
Other keepers are 2001 Centenary of Federation state and territory series (20¢ and 50¢), 1970 Cook 50¢, 1988 tall ships and 2000 Queen's visit. Badly marked or very dull ones will never be worth any real premium but good ones are always saleable.

Any close to uncirculated condition would be worth hanging onto.

And, acquaint yourself with the 2000 Millennium 50¢ incused variety and 2001 CoF $1 'upsets'. They are worth $20 and up; depending on condition.

[Nevol]

1991 ramshead 50¢ is worth keeping. Reasonable ones fetch $3 to $4 on eBay.
Other keepers are 2001 Centenary of Federation state and territory series (20¢ and 50¢), 1970 Cook 50¢, 1988 tall ships and 2000 Queen's visit. Badly marked or very dull ones will never be worth any real premium but good ones are always saleable.

Any close to uncirculated condition would be worth hanging onto.

And, acquaint yourself with the 2000 Millennium 50¢ incused variety and 2001 CoF $1 'upsets'. They are worth $20 and up; depending on condition.

Also look for the 50c 2010 'Upset' as well.

[Fulvio]

Forgive my ignorances with respect to coins, I wish to find out if there is any increased value in the Australian coins that are currently in circulation that have other "pictures" on their "tales" side.

Head over to my website at http://fulvio55.altervista.org and grab a copy of my Decimal Mintages PDF (feel free to pay for it if you have any Dogecoins, otherwise, meh...)

Look at the mintages.

Anything under 10 million has potential, but not much. Anything under 1 million is a definite keeper. Anything marked MSO, don't bother unless you find one in circulation. These were collector coins, released only in mint sets, and therefore not 'real', as such.

Note how many commemoratives have enormous mintages. These have pretty much no value, unless they're in absolute top condition, or have errors or varieties on them.

So, if I were in your shoes, I would grab a decent magnifier, say a 10x Loupe for example, and after sorting them by type, have a REALLY good look at each and every one, and try to spot anything out of the ordinary.

Some of the varieties are marked as such in the list. Errors aren't, as they're more or less random. And Flaws definitely aren't, since they're one-off, unique coins.

Flaws are anything such as a planchet flaw, clip, misstrike and the like. They'll be easy enough to spot.

Errors are coins where a die was damaged in some way, resulting in cracks, cuds, clashes or other repeatable errors on the coin.

A (very) few errors are:

$1 MoR, Many years - Rabbit ears
$1 IYoP, 1999 - Upsets
$1 CoA, 2001 - Upsets (full rotation, see clock faces)
$1 Outback, 2001 - 'Uluru' cud
$1 Dancing man, 2005 - Hat cud
$1 Suffragettes, 2003 - Skirt crack, hat cuds, scratched field next to trident

50¢ WW2, 2005 - Cud at base of Priest's stole, soldier cuds, filled O
50¢ Millennium, 2000 - Fat lettering, flag tip cracks
50¢ CoA, 2001 - Fat 5, Speared Roo, Roozilla, many, many cracks & cuds

10¢ 1999 - Feather cud

Varieties are where two or more versions of a die was used.

$1 2000 Mule
$1 1999 S/M/L Obverse
$1 2001 S/L Obverse
$1 2003 S/L Rev (Long/Short Trident)

50¢ 1979/80 Double Bar
50¢ 2000 Incused Flag
50¢ 1994 Wide/Narrow Date

20¢ 1966 Wavy 2
20¢ 1981 3-1/2 Toes

So, after you've looked at them all, you'll want to keep low mintages, errors/flaws/varieties, and any coins in really good nick. The rest is junk you can safely throw back in the pond. Unless, of course, you have a soft spot for a design. Such as the 1977 50¢ which a lot of people really like.

How's that for starters?

[Robster]

Well compiled Fulvio.! :good:

[Ozcoins]

I think Fulvio had done a great job of letting you know what to look for.
Well done!

[runway]

I totally disagree with your quote Fulvio stating
"Anything marked MSO, don't bother unless you find one in circulation. These were collector coins, released only in mint sets, and therefore not 'real', as such"

In the real world, coin collectors actually find these and treasure them :wavemulticolor:

[Unicorn]

$1 Outback, 2002 - 'Uluru' cud

Great listing McDuck!

Do you have a pic of that one? It's a newie to me.

[Fulvio]

Do you have a pic of that one? It's a newie to me.

Just checked. I've only got doubling and rim cud pics.

I'll see what I can dig up and snap something for you.

Basically, its just a largish pimple smack in the middle of the coin, approximately where Uluru would be. Pretty obvious really, and reasonably common in the two sacks I went through at the time.

[Unicorn]

Thanks Fulvio!

[trout]

I would think that the REAL value of the commemoratives found in circulation would be in the enjoyment of finding them all from circulation and compiling a set :ok:
Everyone seems to be transfixed with the resale value of a coin and tends to overlook the immense value derived from the simple Enjoyment of this hobby

[Triggersmob]

Everyone seems to be transfixed with the resale value of a coin and tends to overlook the immense value derived from the simple Enjoyment of this hobby

I couldn't agree more!

[Fulvio]

Everyone seems to be transfixed with the resale value of a coin and tends to overlook the immense value derived from the simple Enjoyment of this hobby

Quite. As I was telling people over the weekend when discussing granny bait, I don't sell, so it doesn't matter to me what something's worth. But its nice to know that what you have could be disposed of for at least what it cost you, which is not the case with most of the junk the mints target 'collectors' with.

Case in point: I now have half a dozen red $2. They cost me 5x face value. I don't really care, but no way would I buy volume at that price. So I turned down a $200 bag. The Coronation $2's however, I got thousands at face value. I know they're worth over 10x that. And that's a nice feeling.

[runway]

Any person who buys thousands of same coin is definitely no collector