Identifying Tokens

Cross-brand reference for grading, composition, mintmarks, orientation, fakes, and reading catalog codes.

4 guides in this series

Identifying Composition by Sight

How to recognize the common token compositions (brass, nickel, copper, anodized, painted, wood, plastic) by visual cues and catalog suffix.

A cross-brand reference for the mintmarks that appear on cectoken catalog pieces: RWM, HM, HH, OC, and the variants they create.

How to tell coin orientation from medal orientation, why the catalog tracks both, and what orientation says about how a token was struck.

How to read the cectoken catalog code format: brand prefix, type-and-sequence number, composition suffix, and variant qualifier.