How To Identify Coins

If you are novice in numismatics that one is for you:
1 - The first thing you notice is the metal of the coin. The most 6 fundamental metals are – gold, electron(an alloy of gold and silver, with less than 50% gold), silver, billon(an alloy of silver and copper, with less than 50% silver), bronze and copper
2 – The second thing you should pay attention is the size, shape(flat or concave) and weight of the coin, if you can measure all of them you should be able to realize what is the nominal of the coin
3 – Next step is to identify the image of the obverse
4 – Step number four is for coins, better than good fine – it’s identifying the inscription of the obverse. After you do it you will be able to realize the ruler, who minted it.
5 – Identifying the image of the reverse
6 – Like step number 4, but here the inscription of the reverse is the one to pay attention to
7 – Examining the style of the coin itself, in contrast to the first 6 steps it’s a bit difficult to be done and needs a bit more practice.

Now after you know the 7 basic steps in identifying the coin you should be told how to use the catalogue itself:

1 – Really the first division we used is the orthodox countries themselves. Then the rulers of each are allocated according to a specific indication.
2 – Now the coins themselves – the fist indication we use to arrange them is their nominal, from gold to copper(with few exceptions due to quite unusual combination of nominal and metal)
3 – Next indication is the time they were minted and earlier coins are the first to be shown
4 – Last indication(not always used) is the mint, that produced the coin