Great Britain Lauer Toy Coins (Nurnberg, Germany) 1830 to 1910

These coins are essentially 'play money' with English artwork, manufactured, in this case, in Nuremberg, Germany. Based on writings of Sap over at CoinCommunity.com, the inscription LAUER refers to the Lauer family in Nuremberg who were famous for making tokens. Our secondary graphic (to the right) shows a few other designs. There are many such designs.

As for value, these are tokens, not legal tender coins and therefore do not command a strong collector following. It is collector demand that make old coins valuable and, without much following, tokens are at the lower end of that scale. Nevertheless, there are avid token collectors, so if you have a nice specimen with little damage and good eye appeal, you can expect some value.

If you go to eBay and search for 'toy coin' you will find several entries, but none very valuable. The coin in our main picture (to the left) comes from expert svslav at CoinCommunity.com and it is in good shape. It has nice even color, no evidence of cleaning, and not much wear. As such, it is a prime candidate for adding to a top-notch collection. svslav might pay $10 US dollars for such a piece. Tokens in worse condition would be worth much less. Very approximately:

worn: less than $1 US dollar approximate catalog value
average circulated: $2
well preserved: $5
fully uncirculated: $20

You can see a few other reference links at this CoinQuest page on jetons.
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