Sell pre-1947 and pre-1920 British silver coins: florins, half-crowns and sixpences

A question costs nothing

Before you decide anything, send a few clear photos of your pre-1947 British silver coins on WhatsApp, or call. You will get a rough estimate and a straight answer about hallmarks, the postal cover, the XRF assay or the free return if you decline. None of it commits you to posting.

GoldPaid is a UK-wide postal gold and silver buying service with no branches. Our main page on selling gold by post in the UK sets out the label, the XRF test, the written offer and the payment in one place.

Two dates decide everything: 1920 and 1947

British silver coinage runs in three eras, and a whole tin can be sorted by reading dates alone. Up to 1919, every circulating British silver coin, from the threepence up to the crown, was struck at the sterling standard, 92.5 per cent silver. The 1920 coinage halved that to 50 per cent, with copper, nickel and later zinc making up the balance. In 1947 the silver came out altogether. Designs and diameters barely changed across those two moments, so a 1919 florin, a 1925 florin and a 1955 florin look almost identical in the hand. The date is the tell.

The monarch on the obverse is a quick cross-check. Victoria and Edward VII coins are sterling. George V coins split at 1920. George VI coins are 50 per cent silver up to 1946 and base metal from 1947. Elizabeth II circulating coins contain no silver at all.

Silver content by denomination, with the arithmetic shown

These figures are worth publishing, because face-value intuition is badly wrong in this category. The pre-decimal silver denominations were struck to a fixed rule: 66 shillings from one troy pound of sterling silver. That gives the shilling a nominal weight of 5.655 g, and every other denomination is a straight multiple of it.

Multiply the nominal weight by 0.925 or by 0.5 and you have the fine silver column, the actual silver each coin contains. Two honest caveats. Circulated coins have lost metal to wear, commonly one to three per cent on a well-worn Victorian piece, so real weights run slightly under nominal. And coins struck before 1816 follow older weight standards, so early milled and hammered silver has to be weighed rather than calculated.

The face-value shortcut for a jar or a tin

If you would rather not weigh anything, count face value instead. One pound of old face value, twenty shillings, ten florins or eight half-crowns, is about 113 g of coin. At the pre-1920 sterling standard that holds roughly 104.6 g of fine silver, about 3.36 troy ounces. At the 1920 to 1946 standard it holds roughly 56.5 g, about 1.82 troy ounces. Put plainly: a dull bag of old shillings that only adds up to a few pounds in old money is often the most valuable single thing in a house clearance.

What is not silver, including things that look like it

• Any British circulating coin dated 1947 or later, including every decimal coin. Cupro-nickel, no silver content.
• The 1951 Festival of Britain, 1953 Coronation and 1965 Churchill crowns. Large, heavy and silver-coloured, and struck in cupro-nickel.
• The twelve-sided brass threepence, introduced in 1937. The small round silver threepence is the one that counts, and it ran in circulation to 1944.
• Pennies, halfpennies and farthings. Copper and bronze throughout, never silver.
• Plated commemorative medallions and mail-order coin covers. Base metal under a thin plated surface.

The exceptions run the other way too. Maundy money followed the 50 per cent standard from 1921 to 1946, then returned to sterling in 1947 and has stayed there, so a modern Maundy set is genuinely silver while ordinary coins of the same date are not. Royal Mint silver proof, commemorative and bullion issues are silver whatever their date, and those sit alongside world coinage on sell silver coins.

When a coin is worth more than its silver

Most pre-1947 British silver is common, circulated and worth its metal. A minority is not. Mintage, date and condition are what lift a coin above melt. The wreath crowns of 1927 to 1936 were struck in tiny numbers by circulation standards, the 1934 lowest of all. The 1905 half-crown is scarce in any grade. Uncirculated pieces that never reached a till, proofs still in their original cases, complete Maundy sets and clear striking errors all sit above metal value, sometimes far above it.

A specialist dealer or a coin auction can serve a scarce or high-grade piece better than a metal sale. Send a photo of the coins on WhatsApp first, with the dates showing, and we will tell you how we would value them before you post anything.

No minimum, and no sorting required

Some buyers set a floor, a minimum weight or a minimum number of coins, before they will look at a lot at all. GoldPaid does not. One sixpence in a padded envelope gets the same written valuation as a two-kilo biscuit tin, and mixed accumulations are welcome whole. Please do not pick out the coins you assume are worthless: base-metal pieces are listed at nil in your breakdown and posted back free.

Four moving parts, all visible

1. You ask, we steer. WhatsApp us photos of your pre-1947 British silver coins; you get a rough estimate and no pressure to go further.
2. We send the label. A free Royal Mail Special Delivery label arrives, tracked and signed for, with a QR-code option if you cannot print.
3. You post when ready. No countdown. Use whatever padded packaging you already have.
4. We test, you decide. We weigh and XRF-assay every item, then send you the written offer, usually on the working day your parcel arrives. Accept it for a Faster Payments transfer, or decline it for a free tracked return.

Your parcel is signed for on arrival and opened at our Bristol office, where each item is weighed and XRF-tested before the written offer is prepared.

Where the figure comes from

Every coin is weighed and XRF-tested at our Bristol office, and the written offer lists each one on its own line, with the reading, the weight and the figure, before you decide anything.

Coins are separated into pre-1920 sterling, 1920 to 1946 half-silver and non-silver groups, then each silver group is weighed and XRF-assayed to confirm fineness rather than assuming it from the date. Your written breakdown shows each group with its weight, confirmed fineness and figure, with non-silver coins itemised at nil.

One parcel gets one written figure, itemised piece by piece. Any gold or silver jewellery in it is priced on the weight and purity we measure and the live precious-metal market, with our margin already inside the figure.

Postage and cover

Your parcel travels on Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed: tracked end to end and signed for on delivery. Royal Mail cover may be available up to £2,500 depending on the postal method and cover level used. GoldPaid can confirm the appropriate postal option before you post. If your items may be worth more, message us first and we can split them across more than one prepaid label, each with its own tracking number, at no charge. Full detail is on postage and cover, and is it safe to post gold? walks through posting valuables safely. If a parcel is lost on its way to us, the compensation claim goes to Royal Mail from you, the sender, using your Post Office receipt, and we give you our tracking records and help you make it. Lost parcels, step by step.

If you decide not to sell

There is never any obligation to accept. If the offer is not for you, simply decline, and we return everything free of charge by tracked, signed-for post, with no fee and no follow-up pressure. The full return process is on what happens if I decline the offer.

The written offer is dated and holds for a limited time, because metal prices move. If it lapses before you decide, we re-run it against the live precious-metal market on the day, at no charge. You can also accept part of a parcel and decline the rest, with no minimum and no penalty for splitting it.

Who this helps

This page is for people who have found a tin, jar or biscuit barrel of old British coins while clearing a loft or settling an estate, for anyone who has been told those old coins might be worth something and wants a straight answer with the sums shown, and for charity shop teams sorting donation tins. For bullion and world silver coinage see sell silver coins. For albums and trays valued piece by piece see sell coin collections. For counter-side sorting see the charity shop guide to pre-1947 British silver.

The payment step

Acceptance starts payment: we aim to send a Faster Payments bank transfer within one working hour of your acceptance, to the account you give us. Nothing to bank and nothing to chase.

Who stands behind the offer

• Owner-run, with founder Rocco Clayfield personally accountable for the service
• Every item XRF-assayed, the result shown to you in writing
• Free tracked postage both ways, so a valuation carries no obligation
• Honest about its limits, including when a specialist would suit you better
• No fabricated reviews and no invented numbers, anywhere on the site

Common questions