How to tell apart a silver coin from copper-nickel coin

[coingirl 0]

If you have two coins listed and they are both the same design, same year and same ruler etc.. but the only difference is that one is silver and one is copper-nickel, how do you tell which one your buying?

If you only have the one coin - i.e. you don't have them both side-by-side to compare, then how would you know if you had the silver one or the copper-nickel one?

[Chris Perkins 228]

Normally (certainly with British coins) there is a date cut off so it's easy to tell.

What particular coins are you refering to?

[coingirl 0]

Normally (certainly with British coins) there is a date cut off so it's easy to tell.

What particular coins are you refering to?

It's a 1920's 10c Straits settlement coin, but in the '2008 standard catalogue of world coins 1901-2000' there are two different types but with identical designs.

I'm not desperate for an answer, I just wondered, because I always come across different variaties in books and wonder how you tell them apart! Even with the GB coins I have no idea what half the things mean.

For instance: modified effigy or higher tide?

If I have a coin and I'm not sure which one it is, or just hope it's the more valuable one!

[Chris Perkins 228]

In my Krause they're all listed as being silver. But then Krause do sometimes have little errors/omissions in them.

Modified effigy is just a fancy way of saying 'modified head' and relates to just George V. Higher tide relates to the level of the sea behind Britannia on the back of some pennies and halfpennies.

[Colin G. 147]

In my Krause they're all listed as being silver. But then Krause do sometimes have little errors/omissions in them.

Modified effigy is just a fancy way of saying 'modified head' and relates to just George V. Higher tide relates to the level of the sea behind Britannia on the back of some pennies and halfpennies.

There is a 1920 5c Straits Setllements which can be silver or CN if I remember correctly. The CN version is much larger than the silver version. Don't know whether the same applies to the 10c coins

[coingirl 0]

Thank you