Expert: Dmitry Livshits - 6/8/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hello,
I am trying to find the worth of two foreign coins I bought off of EBAY.
The first is a 1921 German 50 pfennig coin. It still has all the original lust and minimal wear. It has the mintmark J.
The second is a 1870 Spain 10 centimos coin. It has medium wear and a little lust left. There is a little symbol that looks like an O and an M stuck together on the obverse. The reverse has "L MARC?ION??" written in small letters right below the woman.
Thanks!!!!!

ANSWER: Hi Andrew,
I sell coins on eBay myself. These are two fairly common ones you have, and I hope you did not pay too much for them. The 50 pfennig in mint condition lists for around $8, but they rarely sell for more than $5 including shipping. The 1919 coins with mint marks other than A are the only dates from this series that have a practical value which is significant.
The Spanish coin had a mintage of over 170 million, so condition is very important to value. The values range from $2.00 for a F (Fine) example, which would have visible wear on about 50% of the surfaces. A VF (Very Fine) has wear on no more than 25% of surfaces and lists for $20 (though a practical value is about half that and often less). The real value starts with a coins that has wear on no more than 5% of the surface area. Such a coin would have a practical value of $25 to $50 depending on whether it had any luster remaining or not. The list value is $125 in this grade, but it is very difficult to get that even in a retail situation.
The OM stands for Oeschger Mesdach & Co, a French firm that minted coins out of Strasbourg, France. The other small inscription is "L. Marchionni", a sculptor who designed the coin. Unfortunately there is not much biographical information available about this sculptor.
Thanks for the question! =)

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks again.
I just have two more questions. What mintmarks appear on the German coin and what do they mean? Is the OM the only mintmark that appears on the Spanish coin?

Answer
Hi again Andrew,
The OM is the only mintmark that appears on the 1870's copper and bronze centimos coins. There are various Spanish mints in different cities, which were not all used all the time. This is also true for countries like France and Germany. In Spain, these mint marks would have been the first letter of the city name with a crown or an abbreviation of just a couple of letters from the city name. For example, the Madrid mint mark could be seen as a crowned M, a plain M or an MD. This was the practice until around 1851. After that the only mint marks are teh OM, a 3-pointed star for Segovia, 4-pointed star for Jubia, 6-pointed star for Madrid, 7-pointed star for Seville and an 8-pointed star for Barcelona. Many coins have small letters after the date, these are the initials of the mint official who oversaw the minting of the coins.
The German mint marks are as follows:
A - Berlin
B - Hannover
C - Frankfurt
D - Munich
E - Dresden (until 1887) and Muldenhutten (after 1887)
F - Stuttgart
G - Karlsruhe
H - Darmstadt
J - Hamburg

These mint marks apply to all German coins from the German States period up to the present day republic.

Thanks again for the questions and rating! =)