1945 (P) and D Walking Liberty Half Dollars!

Look at these majestic beauties. Anything with the walking liberty design counts as beautiful in my book. But the original use of the design is probably the most beautiful. These half dollars were minted from 1916 to 1947 when the Franklin Half Dollar took over. The two specimens shown here have obviously seen better days, but being as old as they are and considering they were gifted to me, I can't complain. With silver prices on the rise, the melt value of one of these 90% silver coins is about $7.15. Most numismatic sites have these two coins valued at anywhere from melt value to $14 in the condition they are in. 

Iran 1937 50 Dinars!

Rather than use the dinar as the dollar like Iraq, Iran used it as the cent. So this 50 Dinar coin is just a 1/2 Rial. At current exchange rates, this coin is worthless. Of course, it was demonetized long ago so it is worthless anyway. It features a radiant lion carrying a sword on the obverse and the denomination on the reverse. This coin takes a huge leap from its would-be face value and is worth $1.00.

Croatia 1993 50 Lipa!

In the age before the internet, this coin would require some digging. Nowhere on the coin does it say "Croatia" which makes it hard to identify. However, a quick Google search reveals that it is indeed Croatian. This coin is 50 Lipa, or cents, which is also half of a Kuna. It is worth $0.09 in exchange value which makes 1 Kuna $0.18. This coin is worth about 2 Kuna or $0.40.

1947 Turkish 50 Kurus!

My one and only silver Turkish coin and I got it for a steal. It's metal value is worth over 3 times what I bought it for. Sadly it is only worth metal value in this shape and if silver continues to drop, it may only be worth the $0.50 I bought it for. It's from the time before Turkey's economy was plagued with inflation and practically destroyed, but even then it was a small coin with not a lot of silver. It's not a lot of design either and I can't help but feel the coin was rushed or no one really cared. Anyway it's got a nice 7 in the date and it was an OK bargain.

1956-Mo Cincuenta Cenatvos!

Here's awesome half dollar. It's big and heavy like a coin should be and made of the beautifully inexpensive metal: bronze. Two of these coins put together made the also inexpensive Peso, which was only 10% silver and a tad bigger than this coin. I still wonder why they didn't reduce the size of the Peso or make it Copper-Nickel as both would have saved money, but the past is the past and they eventually did make it copper nickel. Just not before they made it the lowest purity of silver ever recorded in history. Anyway this coin is relatively cheap at $0.75 and has been demonetized so it's no longer legal tender.

12/21/12 (Mexican Cincuenta Centavos 1979)!

In the same spirit as this post on Coined For Money I'm posting a Mexican coin! They are basically the same coins in design with the only real differences being this one is 50 Cents and not silver. There were a bunch of these at the flea market and since I had more Tanzanian coins than Mexican coins, I bought it. I'm not particularly fond of the reverse design so I'm glad that's changed in the past 30 years. The obverse has changed as well going from the coin above to this coin. There are two varieties for this year one has the last 9 round, like mine, and the other has both 9's square. The round 2nd 9 is worth $0.15 and the both 9's square is worth $0.20.

1907 Barber Half Dollar!

Another flea market silver value coin. This is typical of these coins, though, since they were the $20.00 bills of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Yes it's true the $20.00 coin was a $300.00 coin by today's standards which is why gold and silver were useable. Now a half dollar is two quarters and we all know what that'll buy you- almost nothing. This coin has a value of $12.07 because of its silver content.

2002-F Greek 50 Euro Cent!

This, like all of my Greek Euro coins, came from my aunt a few years ago when she went to Greece. Since I've already told that story here, I'll just say that this one with the F in the star is rarer with a mintage of 23 million fewer than it's non-F in star counterpart. There's a $1.00 difference for these coins in MS-60 with this one being worth $2.50. Mine is a lower grade and would probably go for around $1.75-$2.00.

1954 Greek 50 Lepta!

This is my favorite Greek coin. Why? Because it is small, has a good design, and could be worth around $60.00. Greece, like many other post war European countries, was poor-ish. That explains why their half dollar is dime-sized and copper-nickel. It also explains why this coin could be worth so much. Generally poorer countries wear out their coins faster, calling for higher mintages and less collectors coins. This means many were thrown into circulation because collectors thought the coin would be worthless and because they had to feed their families. While these coins were getting worn down, the ones that were intentionally or unintentionally saved sat around gaining value. Now, 58 years later, the MS-60 version of this coin goes for $60.00 while the VF-20 version goes for around $0.25. That's a big price difference which is why I asked Man at Coined For Money of it's value. Sadly, it's the XF-40 version and worth around $1.25.