Where to sell

Where to sell old coins in India: seven options compared

There is no single best place to sell old coins in India, and the place matters less than the coin. Check first whether yours is ordinary — worth its face value — or a specific collector variety; that decides which of the seven options below is worth your time.

Check this first: ordinary coin or collector variety?

Most old coins and notes sell for a few hundred rupees at most. Of the 11,592 sales of old coins and notes recorded at 10 independent coin shops in our price index, the middle price was ₹175 and 77.7% were under ₹500. Only 6 passed ₹1 lakh.

An ordinary ₹10 coin is worth ₹10. Specific varieties — a particular year, mint, commemorative issue or minting error — sell for more, and the coin value pages show the real ranges: ₹10 coins, ₹5 coins, anna coins and the rest.

This is what decides where to sell. If your coin is ordinary, nobody anywhere will pay much over face value, so the cheapest, quickest option wins. If it is a real collector variety, the place matters, because the gap between a dealer's offer and what a collector pays is where your money is.

The options at a glance

Where	What you get	Fraud risk	What it costs you
Local coin dealer	Less than a collector pays — the dealer resells at a profit	Low face to face; the real risk is selling too cheap	Nothing up front
Coin fair	Dealer prices, but many dealers to compare in one hall	Low inside the hall	Travel, and a day or two
Auction house	The hammer price, minus the seller's commission	Low with an established house	A commission (ask first), and a wait for the next sale
OLX, Quikr	Whatever a buyer agrees to — you set the price	High — anyone can answer, fee scammers included	Free to post, within each site's limits
Online coin marketplaces	The sale price, less a commission — or in full after a listing fee	Varies — check who runs the site	A commission or a listing fee
The Currency Bazaar	The full sale price — 0% commission	Not zero — your number is never shown, chats are scanned	A one-time plan fee, paid even if nothing sells
Bank or RBI	Face value at a bank; the RBI buys nothing	None from a bank — but anyone "buying for the RBI" is a fraud	Nothing

One rule covers every option on this page: a real buyer never asks the seller for money. Not a registration fee, not GST, not "RBI clearance", not an export or insurance charge. If anyone asks you to pay before you are paid, stop. It is the advance-fee scam, and once you pay the first fee the next one is always bigger.

1. A local coin dealer or shop

Who it suits: a few coins, or a mixed lot of ordinary ones, when you want cash today and face to face.
What you get: less than a collector would pay. The dealer has to resell at a profit, so the offer sits below the market price — and how far below, you will only know if you checked the range first.
Fraud risk: low, because you are standing in a shop. The risk is underpricing, not theft.
What it costs you: nothing up front. The dealer's margin is the cost.

Show the same coin to two or three dealers before you agree a price. The first offer is where bargaining starts, not what the coin is worth.

2. A coin fair

Coin and note fairs are held in cities across India. Many dealers sit in one hall, and many of them buy as well as sell. The dates for 2026–27 are on our coin fair calendar.

Who it suits: anyone with a box of coins who can reach a fair city on the dates and wants to compare offers in person.
What you get: dealer prices again — below what a collector pays — but with several buyers in one room looking at the same coin.
Fraud risk: low inside the hall, where dealers trade in public. The fee rule still applies: nobody genuine charges you to "register", "certify" or "clear" a coin before buying it.
What it costs you: travel, and a day or two. Confirm the dates and entry terms with the organiser before you go.

3. An auction house

Who it suits: a coin you have good reason to think is genuinely scarce — confirmed by real sale prices, not by a phone call — and worth enough to justify a commission and a wait.
What you get: the hammer price, minus your seller's commission. Bidders also pay the house a buyer's premium on top of the hammer price, and they bid with that in mind.
Fraud risk: low with an established house that publishes its catalogues and results. Read the consignment terms before you hand anything over.
What it costs you: a seller's commission, which houses often do not publish — ask for it in writing. And time: a coin waits for a catalogue and a sale date, and can still go unsold.

An auction is not the route for a jar of ordinary coins. It is for the few pieces worth cataloguing.

4. Classifieds: OLX and Quikr

Who it suits: sellers who are comfortable dealing with strangers, already know what their coin is worth, and know the fee rule by heart.
What you get: whatever a buyer agrees to. There is no commission, but there is no price check either — you choose the number, and the listings around yours are asking prices, not sales (why that matters).
Fraud risk: high. Anyone can answer a public ad, including the "buyer" who says your coin is worth ₹3 lakh and asks you to pay a fee first.
What it costs you: free to post, within each site's free-ad limits. Payment and delivery are usually arranged between you and the buyer.

Facebook Marketplace is left out on purpose: Meta's commerce rules do not allow real money, coins included, to be bought or sold, so a coin listing there can be taken down.

5. Online coin marketplaces — and eBay

eBay's Indian marketplace closed in August 2018, and ebay.in now leads to eBay's export programme, which is for selling to buyers abroad. That rules it out for most people: an overseas sale means shipping abroad, and coins 100 or more years old cannot legally be exported from India.

That leaves Indian numismatic marketplaces — websites built for coins and notes. They work in three ways: some take a commission when your coin sells, some charge a fee to list, and some are dealers that buy from you outright through a website.

Who it suits: sellers who can photograph, describe, pack and post, and want buyers beyond their own city.
What you get: the sale price less the commission — or the full price, if you paid to list instead. A site that buys outright pays like a dealer.
Fraud risk: depends on the site. Check who runs it before you deal (five checks that take two minutes). A site that opens with "we buy old coins for lakhs" is not a marketplace.
What it costs you: a commission on the sale, or a listing fee, depending on the site. Read its rate card first.

6. The Currency Bazaar (this site)

We are one of the marketplaces in option 5, so here is the same assessment of us, downsides included.

Who it suits: anyone with several coins or a collection who wants to reach collectors across India without publishing a phone number, and who accepts paying once up front with no promise of a sale.
What you get: the full sale price. We take 0% commission and buyers pay no fee. The buyer pays you directly — we are not in the middle of that payment — so you agree payment and delivery with the buyer yourself.
Fraud risk: not zero. Your phone number is never published, and buyers reach you only through chat on the site. The text of every chat message is scanned for the fraud patterns — fee requests, off-site payment links, "RBI clearance" — and if a message you receive matches, you are warned before you reply. Where an item can be matched to price data, its page shows what similar items really sold for. No site can vouch for every stranger, so the rule above still applies here.
What it costs you: a one-time plan fee, paid up front whether or not anything sells. If you have published nothing yet, you can ask for a refund within 7 days of paying; once a listing is published, the fee is not refundable.

The plain downsides: you pay before you sell; the site is young, so far fewer buyers browse it than browse the big classifieds sites; and nobody — us included — can promise that your coin will sell, or at what price.

7. A bank or the RBI

Neither buys old coins. A bank will take legal-tender coins at face value — exchanged for notes or deposited — and nothing more for age or rarity. Coins of 25 paise and below stopped being legal tender on 30 June 2011, so a bank will not take those at all.

The Reserve Bank of India said on 4 August 2021 that it "does not deal in such matters and never seeks charges/ commissions of any sort", and that it has authorised nobody to collect charges or commission on its behalf in such deals. Anyone who says they are buying "for the RBI" is lying. What the RBI actually says.

Who it suits: ordinary coins that are still legal tender — the kind you can still spend. Take them to a bank, or simply spend them.
What you get: face value. Nothing for collector interest.
Fraud risk: none from a bank. The risk is people using the RBI's name.
What it costs you: nothing.

So which one should you choose?

Ordinary coins still in circulation: spend them, or take them to a bank. No other option will pay meaningfully more.
A few coins worth a little more, and you want cash now: a local dealer or a coin fair — after you have checked the range and compared offers.
A boxful or a collection: an online marketplace, ours or another, where collectors across India can find each piece.
One genuinely scarce piece: ask an established auction house for its terms, and compare them with what the same coin has really sold for.
Whichever you choose: if anyone asks you to pay first, stop. Call 1930, the national cyber-crime helpline, or report it at cybercrime.gov.in.

Selling more than a few coins?

Pay once — ₹99, ₹299 or ₹2,499, by how many items you have. No commission on the sale, your phone number stays private, and nobody promises you a buyer.

See the plans

Last updated: 2026-10-02