is there an app to identify coins?

If you want a photo ID for coins from anywhere

CoinSnap, from Next Vision Limited, identifies coins from around the world from one photo. It gives a coin's name, origin, issue year, mint count, rarity and price estimates, and it adds grading reports with estimated market values and collection tracking in the same app. Google Play shows 10m+ downloads, which tells you it is widely installed but says nothing about how accurate it is.

Then there is the paywall. Its website says you can identify thousands of coins for free, but the full feature set needs Premium. On the UK App Store that is sold as in-app purchases from £3.99 to £39.99, alongside a yearly Premium subscription with a 7 day trial, and the listing does not say what period each of those purchases covers. Check the period before you buy.

Coins are only one corner of the problem, and if you've got something older sitting in a drawer, the same question comes up again. We looked at whether a website to identify antiques can do the job, and the answer is partly: photo search and identifier apps will suggest what an item is, but firmer values come from somewhere else.

If you collect US coins

PCGS CoinFacts is PCGS's US coin reference, and its UK App Store and Google Play listings call it 100% free to use. It covers values, populations, images and auction prices realised for over 40,000 US coins by its UK App Store listing (Google Play says over 39,000), and it has a barcode lookup for coins already graded by PCGS or NGC.

What you give up is photo recognition. It scans graded coin barcodes rather than recognising a loose coin from a picture, it covers US coins only, and it needs an internet connection. For an ungraded coin from another country, it will not help.

If you are checking UK change

Change Checker is a UK coin collecting web app, built to find, identify, collect and swap UK coins, and its page features 50p coins. It has a swap centre for collectors, which helps if you are filling gaps in a set.

It is a web app you add to your home screen rather than a store app. The page shows login and register options but does not state a price for the web app, so we cannot tell you what it costs, if anything.

If you want to browse a catalogue by filters

Coin ID Scanner is a photo coin identifier and value checker. Its App Store developer is DEXIO OYUN YAZILIM VE REKLAM GELISTIRME ANONIM SIRKETI, while the copyright line names Ruslan Ivanov, so it is not clear who stands behind it. Its App Store listing describes a catalogue of more than 187,000 coins you can filter by country, collection, currency, metal and year, plus an AI Numismatist chat for questions.

The catch is ads and subscriptions. Both its store listings say it contains advertising, and the paid plans are weekly or yearly subscriptions after a 3 day free trial. The listings say it is free with in-app purchases, but what stays free after the trial is not stated.

If you would rather not install a coin app

Google Lens is Google's visual search from your camera, an image or a screenshot, in the Google app or Chrome. There is nothing extra to install, so it works as a quick first look.

It is a general tool, though. Google's Lens page does not mention coins and gives no accuracy figures, and it names no price. You get convenience and give up anything coin-specific.

When paying is worth it

For most lookups you do not need to pay straight away. PCGS CoinFacts is free, and CoinSnap's website says you can identify thousands of coins for free before Premium comes into it.

The plan to be careful with is Coin ID Scanner: £9.99 a week or £59.99 a year on the UK App Store, with a £29.99 yearly sale price also listed. A weekly plan left running costs far more than the yearly one, so if you do subscribe, know which period you have picked and when the trial ends.

CoinSnap claims 99% recognition accuracy, but that is the developer's claim and neither it nor any other figure here has been independently tested. The same UK App Store listing also gives its database as both 300,000+ and over 240,000 coin types, so the listing contradicts itself.

Change Checker's app page also sells coins and collecting accessories, so it is a shop as well as a tool. That does not make the identification less useful, but it is worth knowing who is showing you what.

App values are estimates. CoinSnap and Coin ID Scanner show price estimates, and PCGS CoinFacts lists price guide values and auction prices for US coins, but none of that is an offer to buy your coin.

If you found the coin in the ground, GOV.UK says anything officially defined as treasure must be reported to your local Finds Liaison Officer within 14 days of finding it, and Scotland and Northern Ireland have different rules. Not every old coin counts as treasure, but if yours might, that duty comes before any app's opinion.