RWC III Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 I believe this to be a fairly nice example of a 5 Lire from Italy 1878. What is its value? Is it worth grading and slabbing? What is the material composition? Are these common? There appears to be something written on the face. "22.5"? Anyone venture a guess as to what that means? I weighed it, and it came in at 25grams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbbpll Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 I use Numista to look these up, perhaps there is a better site. https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces2290.html I recommend you learn to not hold your coins like that. Look at that big fat fingerprint on the reverse. That stuff never goes away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RWC III Posted January 21, 2020 Author Share Posted January 21, 2020 6 minutes ago, kbbpll said: I recommend you learn to not hold your coins like that. Look at that big fat fingerprint on the reverse. That stuff never goes away. How exactly do you hold a coin, if not with your fingers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbbpll Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 By the edges or with cotton gloves on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JKK Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 34 minutes ago, RWC III said: How exactly do you hold a coin, if not with your fingers? You can also get these inexpensive blue plastic tongs. They're called by some stupid trade name, I think with a K (wish I could pud-punch some of these "branding" people). They lock on the coin without harming it, as the plastic is rather soft. You could hurt the coin with them if you worked hard at it, but won't if you do it gently enough. 1878-R, post-unification Italy, It₤5. 90% Ag, ASW (silver weight) .7234 oz. Always cool to find. I can't see the wording you're describing on the obverse; the tarnish is unattractive but not too detracting for a lightly worn example. At least no one cleaned it. AU, dealer probably gives you melt for it (which is too low) then dips it and sells it for $49.95, probably deserves to sell for $30-40. If determined to be uncirculated, more. Unlikely to be worth slabbing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirt Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 Second on Numista, it is by far the easiest site I have found for dealing with modern-ish world coins. The 22.5 (22 1/2 to be exact) is the black stuff that looks like black tarnish perpendicular to the horizon of the obverse, correct? Starts just about at his chin? If so, it looks like magic marker or ink. The question is - does the coin look better with that writing on it or would it look better with the writing off it? There's no real way to tell; if you choose to remove it I suspect the tarnish underneath would be uneven and may look worse than the writing. As it's a coin with some value, I might be tempted to just keep it as is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbbpll Posted January 21, 2020 Share Posted January 21, 2020 For those as blind as me, here's the 22 1/2. The coin's listed weight is 25 grams, 90% silver, so 90% of 25 is exactly 22.5 grams. That cannot be a coincidence... Crazy that someone wrote it right on the coin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RWC III Posted January 26, 2020 Author Share Posted January 26, 2020 Sorry, been very busy with work and I bought a bunch of coin organizing stuff. Ive been going through the collection trying to get it better organized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
