Expert: Dmitry Livshits - 11/17/2009

Question
Hey again. As soon I can settle down from work I am going to send some info I got on the coin we spoke of a couple of days ago. The local guy that looked at it had a dealer in Atlanta that jumped on it and made me an offer I could not refuse. I am going to give the person I bought it from some of the proceeds. It is the right thing to do. The others will be kept for sure. I will e-mail you more details since I don't want to post this info online.

I have one more that I found that appears to be silver. It has on the obverse UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. In the center is a shield with 3 stars across the top of the shield. An eagle with its wings out high is on top of the shield. there is a scroll or banner below the shield and below this is the date 1944. On the back top is the words FIVE CENTAVOS and on the bottom is PHILIPINAS. There is a man sitting on a chair with a hammer in his right hand and the head of the hammer is facing down. In the background to the right of the man is a volcano with smoke coming out it. The coin is in AU condition and almost MS. What is it and how much would it be valued?

On a side bar, In the past I have purchased many sets of US coins and pretty much scoffed or did not even look through peoples foreign coins. One I don't know anything about them and 2 the few times in he past that I bought some they ended up being junk. I am now going through a bag full of old foreign stuff that I had laid aside over the years. Usually if I buy collections I remove the US stuff and category it and the other went into the bag. And this set was the same. I removed it from he US coins and was about to chunk it into the bag when I started looking at some of the dates. I have purchased a few books on foreign coins and I have only sent you a partial list of some of the coins. You should see all the others that I have been able to identify. It has made me look at ALL coins now much more carefully. You have opened my eyes on this and I thank you for that. In your opinion, what is the best foreign coin book I can get that I can use in identification? The ones that I have bought are limited at best. Thanks.

Answer
Hello again Todd,
Glad to hear you were able to do something with the colonial copper. Whoever's hands it ends up in will be very happy to own it.
Some of my nicest and rarest coins have come from relatively cheap bulk lots, not to mention tons of nice coins I've sold in my eBay business. It's a great thing to look through, since most people will know a bit about US coins, but not much about foreign.
The latest coin is indeed a Philippines (under US Administration) 5 centavos coin. This particular date is quite common and only worth a couple of dollars, even in mint condition. Some of the 1920's and 1910's dates from this series can get up into the hundreds however.
The "bible" of coin books is the Krause-Mishler "Standard Catalog of World coins". These are really thick books, costing about $50-$60 each depending where you buy them. They are split up by centuries. You don't necessarily need all of them. For example, I have the 1701-1800, 1801-1900, 1901-2000 books, and the cheaper supplement "Unusual World Coins", which has medallic issues and patterns/trials. It's quite a complete library that would cost under $200. You don't need the specialized book for specific countries, such as Spink for British coins or Charlton for Canadian, unless you plan on heavily collecting varieties.
Thanks again for the questions and kind ratings! =)