£ Harold Sterling British Coins, Plainly Explained
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Harold Sterling — Thirty Years Behind the Counter

The Small Change in Your House Could Be Worth a Fortune £500 to £50,000

The complete guide to spotting Britain's most valuable coins before you spend them — which coins in your house are worth more than their face value, how to tell them apart from the ordinary ones, and what they have actually sold for.

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25Chapters
147Pages
5Reference Tables
Harold Sterling at his desk

“Most coins are worth exactly what it says on them. That is not a disclaimer. It is the single most useful fact in coin collecting.”

— Harold Sterling, page one
Section I — The Book

A working manual, not a history of British coinage

There are excellent histories of British coinage. This is not one of them. This book has a narrower job.

The Small Change in Your House — First Edition cover

I have spent a little over thirty years around British coins. Some of that behind a counter, a good deal of it at the Midland fair in Solihull and the London fairs before that, and rather more of it lately in front of a camera.

The questions people bring me have not changed in three decades. Is this one rare. Is that a mistake or just damage. Somebody told me this was worth a thousand pounds, is it. The answers have not changed much either, and they are almost all in this book.

Some of what follows has appeared on the channel. Most of it goes considerably further than a video ever can, because a video has to hold your attention for eight minutes and a book can simply tell you the truth and let you take your time over it. A few chapters are not on the channel at all.

Within about ten minutes of starting the first chapter, you will be able to look at any handful of British change and know whether there is anything in it worth a second look. That skill takes most people years to pick up by accident. There is no reason it should.

Where a coin is genuinely rare, I say so and give you the figures. Where a coin is being talked up online and is not rare at all, I say that too, and I name it. There are a number of stories doing the rounds that have cost people real money, and a book that repeated them to keep you excited would not be worth the price of it.

Every chapter is built the same way. The coin itself and why it matters. How to identify it, written the way I would talk you through it if the coin were on the counter between us. Then the figures — how many were made, and what examples have actually sold for, broken down by condition. Then what people get wrong about that coin, which is usually the most valuable part. Then what to do if you have one.

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Section II — The Difference

Why the jar on the windowsill keeps getting missed

Nearly every expensive miss I have seen over the counter happened the same way.

Checking your change the usual way
  • Hunting for the one coin you saw in a video — and your eye slides straight past everything else
  • Judging value by what people are asking for one online
  • Believing headlines about "rare" coins that were minted in the millions
  • Giving a promising coin a polish so it looks its best
  • Guessing whether an odd-looking coin is a minting error or ordinary damage
  • Finding something good, then having no idea what to do with it
The method in this book
  • A ten-minute, four-pass check that forces you to handle every coin once
  • Sold prices, broken down by condition — and where to read them free in two minutes
  • The talked-up coins named outright, with the mintage figures that settle it
  • Chapter 21: never clean a coin, and exactly what a clean costs you
  • Chapter 20: the difference between an error and damage — usually several hundred pounds
  • Chapter 23: where to sell, and what each route takes out of your pocket
Section III — What's Inside

Twenty-five chapters, six denominations, 147 pages

Read them in any order that suits you. The contents group by denomination — if the jar on your windowsill is mostly fifty pences, start there.

Front Matter
  1. —The Ten-Minute Pocket Check — the four passes that tell you whether there is anything worth keeping in the money already in your house
Part One — The Fifty Pence
  1. 1The Rarest Coin in Britain Is a Fish
  2. 2Kew Gardens: The Coin That Started Everything
  3. 3The Twenty-Nine Olympic Fifties, and the Five That Matter
  4. 4The Swimmer With Water Over His Face
  5. 5Beatrix Potter and the Year Everyone Started Looking
  6. 6The Big Old Fifties Nobody Thought to Keep
Part Two — The Pound Coins
  1. 7The Round Pound: Twenty-Five Designs, Two That Pay
  2. 8The Twelve-Sided Pound and the Bee That Wasn't
  3. 9Nine Tests for a Fake Pound
Part Three — The Two Pound Coins
  1. 10Manchester 2002: The Rarest £2 in Circulation
  2. 11Britannia, and the Queen Who Came Out Upside Down
  3. 12Shakespeare, the Army, and the Wrong Edge
Part Four — The Small Change
  1. 13The Twopence That Says the Wrong Thing
  2. 14The Twenty Pence With No Date At All
  3. 15Pennies: What to Keep and What to Spend
  4. 16Silver Down the Back of the Sofa
Part Five — How to Look
  1. 17The Kitchen-Table Kit
  2. 18Grading Without the Jargon
  3. 19Mintage: The Number Behind Every Price
  4. 20Errors, Damage, and the Difference Between Them
  5. 21Never Clean a Coin
Part Six — What It Is Really Worth
  1. 22Sold Prices, Not Asking Prices
  2. 23Where to Sell, and What Each Route Costs You
  3. 24Slabbing: When Grading Is Worth the Fee
  4. 25Building Something Worth Keeping
Appendix — The Reference Section
  1. —The Master Mintage Table
  2. —The One-Page Check Card
  3. —The Change-Checking Ledger
  4. —A Glossary of the Words Dealers Use
  5. —Where to Go Next

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Section IV — Reader Results

From the postbag

What readers write in after their first pass through the jar.

★★★★★

“Did the ten-minute check on the biscuit tin in the hall while the kettle boiled. Two 2011 sport fifties and one I'd never have looked twice at. The book paid for itself before I'd got to Chapter 3.”

Margaret H.Derbyshire
★★★★★

“I nearly gave a coin a good clean last year because it looked grubby. After Chapter 21 I understand what that would have cost me. Wish I'd read this in 2019.”

Dennis W.Kent
★★★★★

“What I wanted was somebody to tell me plainly which coins are talked up and which are actually scarce. Harold names them. My grandson and I now check the change together every Sunday.”

Pauline R.Ayrshire
Section V — About

Who is Harold Sterling?

Harold Sterling

Thirty-odd years around British coins. Some of it behind a counter, a good deal of it at the Midland fair in Solihull and the London fairs before that, and rather more of it lately in front of a camera.

I am not a historian and I do not pretend to be. What I know is the practical end of it: which coin in a handful is worth a second look, how to tell a genuine minting error from a coin that has simply had a hard life in a till, and what things actually sell for rather than what people ask.

I wrote this book for everyone who has ever tipped out a jar of coppers on the kitchen table just to see what was in there — and for everyone who has spent a valuable coin without knowing it, which is very nearly all of us.

Harold SterlingFirst Edition · 2026
Section VI — Order

The Small Change in Your House

The complete First Edition, delivered the moment you order.

The Small Change in Your House Could Be Worth a Fortune — £500 to £50,000

The Harold Sterling Guide · First Edition, 2026

  • The complete 147-page First Edition (PDF, instant download)
  • All 25 chapters, covering six denominations
  • The Ten-Minute Pocket Check — the four-pass method
  • The Master Mintage Table
  • The One-Page Check Card — print it, keep it by the jar
  • The Change-Checking Ledger
  • A Glossary of the Words Dealers Use
  • Read on phone, tablet or computer — or print it at home
$47$27

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Section VII — Questions

Before you order

Are the values in the book real?

Every price in the book is what a coin has actually sold for, not what somebody is asking for one. The difference between those two numbers is the single largest source of disappointment in this hobby, and Chapter 22 is devoted entirely to it.

Mintage figures are those published by the Royal Mint, cross-checked against independently compiled circulation data. Values reflect the market up to the middle of 2026. Treat them as a sense of scale — is this a five-pound coin, a fifty-pound coin, or a five-hundred-pound coin — and check the live figure before any transaction. Chapter 22 shows you how, free, in a couple of minutes.

Your videos are free — why buy the book?

Because a video has to hold your attention for eight minutes, and a book can simply tell you the truth and let you take your time over it. Most of what is in here goes considerably further than a video ever can, and a few chapters are not on the channel at all.

The channel shows you one coin. The book gives you the method for every coin in the jar, plus the mintage tables, the grading, the selling routes and the check card, all in one place you can keep.

Why only $27?

Because the people who most need this book are the ones with a jar on the windowsill they have never properly looked at, and I would rather they read it than admire the price of it. $47 is what a guide of this length ordinarily goes for. $27 is the launch price while the First Edition is new.

Will I definitely find something valuable?

No, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling you something worse than a book. Most coins are worth exactly what it says on them — that is the single most useful fact in coin collecting, and the reason the exceptions matter so much. If every 50p were valuable, none of them would be.

What the book gives you is the ability to know, in about ten minutes, whether a given handful of change contains anything worth a second look — and to stop spending the ones that do.

What format is it, and how do I get it?

A 147-page PDF. You get the download link the moment you order — no waiting for the post. Read it on a phone, a tablet or a computer, or print it at home. The One-Page Check Card is designed to be printed and kept next to the coin jar.

I'm not a collector. Is this too advanced for me?

It is written for the opposite of a collector. It assumes no jargon, no equipment beyond a lamp and a tea towel, and no prior interest in coins — only a jar, a tin or a drawer and some curiosity about what is in it. Chapter 18 covers grading without the jargon; the glossary handles the rest.

Is it only about British coins?

Yes. Modern British circulating coinage — fifty pences, round and twelve-sided pounds, two pounds, twenty pences, twopences and pennies, plus the pre-decimal silver that still turns up in houses. Every figure is in pounds sterling. If your change is not British, this is not the book for you.

Harold Sterling Wait — one thing

Before you go and spend it

Less than one takeaway. The Atlantic Salmon 50p in Chapter 1 has sold for £50 to £90 — and two hundred thousand of them went into circulation.

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