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 an honest quick indicative figure 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. The flagship guide, selling gold by post in the UK, walks through how the whole thing works before you send a thing.
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 coin from the sixpence upward 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 and disappointment usually comes from guessing rather than from the offer. 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.
| Denomination | Nominal weight | Fine silver if pre-1920 (92.5%) | Fine silver if 1920 to 1946 (50%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crown (5s) | 28.28 g | about 26.15 g | about 14.14 g |
| Half-crown (2s 6d) | 14.14 g | about 13.08 g | about 7.07 g |
| Florin (2s) | 11.31 g | about 10.46 g | about 5.66 g |
| Shilling (1s) | 5.66 g | about 5.23 g | about 2.83 g |
| Sixpence (6d) | 2.83 g | about 2.62 g | about 1.41 g |
| Silver threepence (3d) | 1.41 g | about 1.31 g | about 0.71 g |
Multiply the nominal weight by 0.925 or by 0.5 and you have the fine silver column; multiply that by the silver price per gram on the day and you have the melt figure. 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, and it would be easy for a buyer to weigh the lot and stay quiet about the difference. 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.
GoldPaid checks for this as routine, before anything is weighed as bulk. Where a coin in your parcel is worth more to a collector than to a refiner, that is written into the valuation on its own line. Where a specialist dealer or a coin auction would clearly serve you better on a particular piece, we say so and return it. We would rather tell you and lose the coin than buy it quietly at melt.
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, and in practice the coin people are most tempted to bin is quite often the interesting one.
Four moving parts, all visible
- You ask, we steer. WhatsApp us photos of your pre-1947 British silver coins; you get an honest indicative figure and no pressure to go further.
- 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.
- You post when ready. No countdown. Use whatever padded packaging you already have.
- We test, you decide. We weigh and XRF-assay every item, then send you the written offer. Accept it for a Faster Payments transfer, or decline it for a free insured return.
Where the figure comes from
There is no guesswork in the offer. We confirm purity by XRF assay, weigh on calibrated scales, and price against the live market rate on the day. Every one of those numbers appears in the written breakdown you receive before deciding. The full method is on how we value gold.
Coins are separated into pre-1920 sterling, 1920 to 1946 half-silver and non-silver groups, then each silver group is weighed on calibrated scales and XRF-assayed to confirm fineness rather than assuming it from the date. Gross weight multiplied by confirmed fineness gives the fine silver weight, and that is priced against the silver market rate on the day. Anything flagged as a collector piece is valued on its own line rather than folded into the bulk weight. Your written breakdown shows each group, weight, fineness, rate and figure, with non-silver coins itemised at nil. Indicative per-gram silver rates sit on the gold and silver calculator and move with the market.
Postage and cover
Your parcel is covered by Royal Mail Special Delivery, with cover available up to £2,500 depending on the cover level used. The label we send is Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed: tracked end to end, signed for on delivery, and arranged with that compensation cover per parcel. If you believe your items are worth more, message us before posting. We will arrange the right approach, either extra cover or splitting the items across more than one parcel. Full detail is on postage and insurance, and is it safe to post gold? walks through posting valuables safely.
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, insured post, with no fee and no follow-up pressure. The full return process is on what happens if I decline the offer.
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 triggers payment: a direct bank transfer by Faster Payments, to the account you give us. Nothing to bank and nothing to chase.
Built to be trusted, not just believed
- Owner-run, with a named founder accountable for the service
- Every item XRF-assayed, the result shown to you in writing
- Free insured postage both ways, so a valuation is genuinely 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
Which years of British coins actually contain silver?
1919 and earlier is 92.5 per cent sterling silver. 1920 to 1946 is 50 per cent silver. 1947 onward contains no silver at all. That applies to the threepence, sixpence, shilling, florin, half-crown and crown. Pennies, halfpennies, farthings and the twelve-sided brass threepence are base metal in every year.
How much silver is in a pre-1947 half-crown?
A half-crown weighs about 14.14 g new. If it is dated 1919 or earlier that is roughly 13.08 g of fine silver; if it is dated 1920 to 1946, roughly 7.07 g. Circulated coins weigh a little less than nominal, so yours are weighed and XRF-assayed before any figure is set rather than calculated from the date alone.
Is there a minimum amount before you will look at them?
No. There is no minimum weight, quantity or value. A single sixpence gets the same written, itemised valuation as a full tin. If you only have a handful of coins, message on WhatsApp first and we will tell you honestly whether posting them is worth your time.
Should I clean the coins before sending them?
No, please do not. Cleaning removes the natural toning collectors pay for and can permanently reduce a coin from collectable value to scrap value. It makes no difference at all to the silver weight. Send them exactly as they are, dirt included.
What if one of my coins turns out to be rare?
We tell you, in writing, before you accept anything. Scarce dates, uncirculated pieces, cased proofs, complete Maundy sets and error coins are identified and listed separately from the bulk silver. If a coin auction or a specialist dealer would get you more for a particular piece, that goes in the valuation too, and you can decline that coin or the whole parcel and have everything returned free.
My 1953 Coronation crown is big and heavy, surely that is silver?
It is not, and this is the single most common disappointment in this category. The 1951 Festival of Britain, 1953 Coronation and 1965 Churchill crowns are all cupro-nickel. They were made in large numbers as keepsakes and are worth face value or whatever a collector will pay, not scrap. Send them anyway if they are in the tin; they are itemised at nil and returned free.