A client recently sent me a photo of an inherited coin from her great-grandfather, who used to work at a grist mill. Naturally, I stopped everything to dive into some research! 😉

I didn’t have a picture of the front of the coin, but before you read any further, want to guess what it might be?

Initially, I thought it was a Spanish colonial coin from the pirate era, made of silver from 1757. However, after 20 minutes of searching on Google, I realized I was completely off track. I should have taken the time to decipher the letters on the edge, but my impatience got the best of me. So, I did the next best thing a dedicated coin detective would do:

I used Google Lens to cheat a bit! 😎

And, just like that, we had our answer!

[While Google Lens might not always find the exact coin, it generally leads you close enough to narrow down the search significantly!]

First off, the coin isn’t silver—it’s copper! (Photos can be deceiving). Secondly, the “V” in the center wasn’t the date, as I had thought—it’s the coin’s denomination! How tricky is that? Lastly, the coin isn’t Spanish but Portuguese.

So, what exactly is this coin?

[Image from NGC—my go-to site for foreign coins!]

Although there’s no way to confirm if it was used by pirates, despite its age and charm, it’s not particularly valuable. According to NGC, in VG condition, it’s worth about $3.00, and in XF, it’s $50.00. Even though there were only 219,000 made—making it quite rare—rarity isn’t everything. In its current condition (which looks like AG due to wear), it might fetch $1.00 on a good day.

It’s still a fascinating piece with quite a history! Just look at all those dents, scratches, and holes. It’s changed hands countless times, though it’s a bit sad to think it now sits in a collection, gathering dust instead of being appreciated.

This article is its final spotlight, but at least we got to admire it for a moment!

Anyway, I’m back to blogging, as you can see, and I’ll try not to take another 12 months for my next article. 😂

In fact, I found an unfinished story about some fake Morgan Dollars from last year that I’ll share next. After that, I’ll update you on my current coin inventory project. So far, I’ve uncovered lots of toned Morgans and a bunch of junk silver, but who knows what other mysteries we’ll solve?

Hope your own coin adventures are going great! See you here again soon.

UPDATE: I now have the mystery coin in my hands (all previous research was based on the initial photo). It’s surprisingly small and thin! It looked more robust in the picture, so sometimes you can’t tell until you hold it in person. The color is darker—brown, actually—which should have clued me in that it was copper, not silver. Oh well.

Here’s a side view and the front, which I initially didn’t have. It’s been a fun challenge all around! 👍