Foreign coins can also have significant value. I had a friend in high school who described a coin to me that a relative who served in the Pacific brought back after WWII and it sounded a whole lot like a German New Guinea 5 mark. I asked him to bring it to school, he did, and that was exactly what it was, and worth $500 then.
There are also some common coins that were brought home by tourists from Europe that can have more value than one would think. An example is the 1951 dated 2 mark German coins. These were struck with a frozen date for quite a few years and hundreds of millions minted, with a face value of 50 cents US. In 1957, a new design of 2 mark was introduced. In the 1970s, the Bundesbank started withdrawing and melting the 1951 design without any announcement until the melting program ended. When collectors found out the massive percentage that had been melted, the remaining coins became much sought after. Prior to that announcement, one could find these coins at US coin shows that could be bought around face value. After the announcement, they went for $10-15 each.
Common circulating (once) silver coins of Europe also have value like the German 5 masks, Italian 500 lire, Swiss one, two, and five francs, etc.
If any of the coins are gold, national bullion dealers like JM Bullion, SD Bullion, or APMEX might be your best bet on price. Common ciculating US silver coins, pre-1965) if they are in quantity, are also coins that might bring a better price there.
Somebody needs first to figure out what he has, and then from there determine where to sell them. Local coin dealers can be a mixed bag on what they offer. They will pay a wholesale rather than retail price, but the coins that are not in high demand from their customers will get a low wholesale offer. With some coins, you really need to find someone who specializes in those particular coins to get a decent offer. For example,if there are Canadian common silver coins in quantity, APMEX is the only major dealer I know of which reqularly buys and sells those. If you happen to have a 1908-F German half mark, of which only a thousand were minted, you would need to catch a plane to Germany to sell it for the best price, and it would much more than pay for the trip. Heck, I'd like to have that one as it is the only Imperial German half mark I am missing for what would otherwise be a complete set, but it will always probably be too rich for my blood.
