Old coins and notes at home

Found old coins or notes at home? What to do, and what not to

Whatever turns up in a Diwali clean-out, an ordinary coin or note you can still spend is worth exactly what is written on it. Old coins that are no longer money are worth what a collector pays: in the completed sales we record, old paise and anna coins fetched middle prices of about ₹37 to ₹280, and a silver rupee of 1835–1939 a median of ₹4,200. An ordinary coin or note is not worth lakhs, and anyone who says it is and then asks you for a fee is running a scam. Don’t clean anything, sort what you found, and check what the same kind of piece really sold for.

How should you clean old coins? Don’t

A dark, dull coin looks as if it needs a scrub. Leave it as it is: do not scrub it, polish it or soak it in anything. Asked whether you should clean your coins, the American Numismatic Association’s short answer is “No!”: a cleaned coin generally loses some of its value, and experienced collectors spot one easily. Cleaning cannot be undone. NGC, a coin-grading service, will not give its usual numeric grade to a coin that was cleaned improperly. Treat notes the same way: do not iron, wash or tape them, because note graders mark pressing, washing and home repairs against a note. Keep notes flat, in a paper envelope or a sleeve sold as PVC-free; PVC plastic can damage a note over time. For an ordinary coin you can still spend, none of this matters: it is worth its face value either way.

Sort what you found: is it still money?

Coins you can still spend. Coins of 50 paise, ₹1, ₹2, ₹5, ₹10 and ₹20 are still legal tender, according to the RBI’s own FAQ, so the athanni (50 paise) is still money. Every design of the ₹10 coin is legal tender; it has not been banned. An ordinary one is worth exactly what is written on it. A few specific versions, mostly older commemoratives, carry a collector premium that is real but nowhere near lakhs: see the ₹5 and ₹10 coin pages.
Notes you can still spend. A note that is still legal tender is worth what is written on it. A few specific issues, such as a particular signature or serial number, carry a collector premium (note values). A dirty or stained note is exchanged at full value at a bank branch, and you do not need an account there. A torn note is also taken at a bank branch, and paid in full, at half value or not at all, depending on how much of it is left, under the RBI’s Note Refund Rules. Notes that are extremely brittle, badly burnt or stuck together go to an RBI Issue Office instead.
₹2,000 notes. They are still legal tender, but bank branches stopped exchanging them or taking them for deposit after 7 October 2023. You can exchange them, or deposit them into your bank account, at the RBI’s 19 Issue Offices: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Belapur, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Patna and Thiruvananthapuram. You can also send them through India Post, from any post office, to one of those offices for credit to your bank account. (RBI status release of 1 May 2026, the latest at the time of writing.)
Old ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes of the series in use up to 8 November 2016 cannot be exchanged anywhere today. Banks accepted them for deposit until 30 December 2016; after that, the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Act, 2017 let them be handed in only during a grace period that closed in 2017, and only by people who had been abroad during the note ban or by groups the government named. The same Act forbids anyone to knowingly or voluntarily hold, transfer or receive them, with one allowance: a person may keep up to ten notes in total, or up to twenty-five for study, research or numismatics. That allowance covers keeping them, not selling or buying them. The fine can reach ₹10,000 or five times the face value, whichever is higher. Anyone who offers to “exchange” them for a fee is lying.
Coins of 25 paise and below (the chavanni, and the 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 and 20 paise coins) stopped being legal tender on 30 June 2011; banks exchanged them only until 29 June 2011. No bank will take them now, so a collector’s price is all they are worth. Across 172 recorded sales of old paise coins, 50 paise ones included, the middle price ran from about ₹37 to ₹175 (paise coin values).

Genuinely old coins, and silver coins

Anna, pice and pie coins, from before India went decimal in 1957, are no longer legal tender, and collectors genuinely pay for them. Across 62 recorded sales the middle price ran from about ₹58 to ₹280: real money, but tens or hundreds of rupees, not lakhs. What sets the price is how few were made and how well the coin survived, not its age (anna coin values).
East India Company coins. Genuine Company copper coins sold for a median of ₹450 across 24 sales. The “1818 East India Company” piece with Hanuman or Ram Darbar is a modern token: not one appears among the completed sales we record (real or fake?).
Silver rupees. A rupee dated 1835–1939 holds 10.69 g of pure silver, and these sold for a median of ₹4,200 across 33 sales. A George VI rupee of 1940–45 holds 5.83 g. The 1946–47 rupee is nickel, with no silver at all; it sold for a median of ₹199 across 11 sales (silver coin values). Two checks at home: a silver rupee of 1835–1939 weighs about 11.66 g on a kitchen scale (a worn one a little less), and a magnet does not pick it up, though it does pick up a pure nickel coin. These checks can rule a coin out, but they cannot prove it is silver: brass and copper-nickel do not stick to a magnet either. A coin that “pulls rice” or is said to have “power” proves nothing; those are props of a fraud (how to check a coin).

Check the real sale price, not the asking price

Before you believe any number, look up what the same kind of piece actually sold for. The paise, anna, silver coin, ₹5 coin and ₹10 coin pages list completed sales; coin values and note values give our catalogue’s ranges for the versions that carry a premium. A price in a listing is an asking price: a number a seller typed, which no buyer has agreed to. On one big classifieds site, listings for a single 1947 one-rupee coin have ranged from about ₹999 to ₹60,00,000 (why asked is not sold). Notes ending in 786 sold for a median of ₹149 across 67 sales, while their median asking price is ₹1,025, about seven times more (786 note values). The sale figures on this page are completed sales at independent coin and note shops, read up to 3 October 2026.

Do old coins really sell for lakhs?

Ordinary ones do not, and a real buyer never asks the seller for money. The fraud opens with a video, ad or message saying an ordinary coin or note is worth lakhs, and a “buyer” who agrees to a huge price. Then the fees arrive, each one called the last: registration, then processing or courier, then GST or TDS, then “RBI clearance” or an NOC. A man in Mangaluru, promised ₹49,00,000 for 15 coins, lost a reported ₹58,26,399 this way between 25 November and 30 December 2024 (ETV Bharat, 9 January 2025). Money moves one way only: from the buyer to you. How the scam works

Who buys old coins? Collectors do. The Reserve Bank of India does not. On 4 August 2021 it said it “does not deal in such matters and never seeks charges/ commissions of any sort”, and that it has authorised nobody to collect charges on its behalf, so every “RBI fee” is a lie (what the RBI says). An “export” or “customs” fee is a lie too. A real buyer never asks you for one, and under the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, 1972, a coin 100 or more years old may be exported only by the Government of India or an agency it authorises, so a private buyer cannot legally take it abroad at all.

How to sell safely

Know your number first. Look up the sold price before you talk to anyone. If you have no number in your head, someone else’s number becomes the truth.
Show it clearly. Photograph both sides and the year, and for a note the serial number. Condition decides much of the price, and a buyer can judge only what the photo shows.
Never pay a buyer. Not a registration fee, GST, TDS, insurance, courier, export charge or “RBI clearance”, whoever the buyer says it is for. The moment a buyer, or anyone speaking for one, asks you to pay anything, stop.
Watch for the other signs. A buyer who sends you their own UPI ID or bank details (a real buyer needs yours, not the other way round), a deadline like “only today”, or a push to move to WhatsApp or a phone call.
On The Currency Bazaar your phone number is never shown and buyers reach you by chat. Every message is checked for fee requests and the other signs above, and one that trips a check carries a warning before you reply. We take no commission on the sale. No site can vouch for every stranger, so the rule above applies here too.

Already paid someone? Call 1930, the national cyber-crime helpline, or report at cybercrime.gov.in first; money reported in the first hours is far more likely to be frozen. Then file a written complaint at your local police station and keep the acknowledgement, and forward the message to PIB Fact Check (factcheck.pib.gov.in). If it happened in a chat on this site, also use the Report button in that conversation.

Decided to sell a piece?

Plans start at ₹99, paid once, whether or not anything sells. Buyers reach you by chat, your phone number stays private, and we take no commission. A real buyer pays you, never the other way round.

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Last updated: 2026-10-04