Hello - a friend gave me a large pile of foreign coins for christmas and now I have to figure them all out. I can read enough chinese & japanese to figure those dates out and can read the arabic numbers so those aren't a problem either. Have a handful of Israeli coins and I cant figure those out. Anyone have a good site for determining these dates? tried looking at a few but didnt find anything I liked. It does look like they often leave the first (5000) digit off and then the rest add up but I could have read that wrong. Here is the first coin I am looking at - I think it is an early 80's 1/2 shekel that was replaced in 1985 - perhaps with somebody who can read these telling me which one is the date and a recommendation of a good site or three I can add these coins to the list of ones I can read dates on Thanks edit - Don's world coins has an explanation that seems like the kind I understand - but guess I need help with the characters as I don't quite see the ones listed on the coin - dont know when a character starts & ends it seems
This may help: http://www.hebcal.com/converter/?gd=27&gm=12&gy=2011&g2h=Convert+Gregorian+to+Hebrew+date
The half you got is KM #109 from 5740 (1980), worth under $0.50 in this condition. If you got Krause, there is a list of Hebrew and AD dates in Israel coins section of the catalog. You can easily find Hebrew alphabet in Google and figure the dates, just remember it is read from right to left and several letters got 2 versions: one for middle of the word and one when it is a last letter of the word, just like "mem" in date you see on this 1/2 shekel photo.
thanks - that should help, especially the part about different versions of the letter depending on position. Wasnt concerned about value but always nice to know. I just like digging through a pile of coins like my friend gave me and figuring them all out
Help on israeli dates - from my site http://www.freewebs.com/giladzuckerman/mercuguinness.html#ISRAEL THE 1/2 SHEQEL COIN WITH 3 LETTERS IN DATE IS : תש"ם A FROSEN DATE EXPRESSED BY LETTERS , WHICH ARE ת VALUED AT 400 + ש VALUED AT 300 + ם (final) VALUED AT 40 , COMBINED 740 IN ADDITION TO 5000 YEARS MEANS 5740. THE HEBREW DATING STATRS 3760 YEARS BEFORE CHRISTIAN ERA. 3761 JEWISH ERA = 1 CHRISTIAN ERA , SO 5740 JEWISH ERA RESAMBLES 1980 CE / AD. MOST OTHERDATES ARE FOUND ON THE LISTED COINS THERE.
thanks - a lot of info on your site - think I now have hebrew dates figured out - helped knowing which one was actually the date
DATES BEGINNING FROM התשמ"ב ARE NOT FROZEN : THE FULL DATE IS : WHICH ARE : ה INITIAL (rightest letter) ONLY ! IS VALUED AT 5000 + ת VALUED AT 400 + ש VALUED AT 300 + מ (not final) VALUED AT 40 + ב VALUED AT 2 , COMBINED 5742 , RESAMBLE 1982 , AND COTINUES ONWARD. 5750 התש"ן , 5760 התש"ס , 5770 התש"ע ARE EXPRESSED BY 4 LETTERS. These dates are also listed in http://giladzuckerman.webs.com/mercuguinness.html#ISRAEL
