The edge of a coin: why it is reeded or lettered

Coins · 7 September 2026

A coin has three sides, and the third one is the most overlooked. The edge exists for a reason that was once urgent: precious-metal coins were shaved at the rim, and a patterned edge made the theft visible. That original purpose is long gone, but the edge stayed – as a way of telling denominations apart by touch, as a place for inscriptions, and as the first place to look when something about a coin feels wrong.

Why edges are patterned at all

When coins were worth their metal, clipping – shaving thin slivers from the rim – was profitable and hard to notice. Marking the edge solved it: a clipped coin lost its pattern and gave itself away instantly. Later, when coins stopped being made of precious metal, the same feature kept two useful jobs: it helps people tell denominations apart without looking, and it makes casting a copy harder, because a cast edge never comes out as crisp as a struck one.

Five edge types

1. Plain. Smooth and unmarked, typical of low-value coins where clipping was pointless.
2. Reeded. Fine vertical grooves. The commonest type, and the count of grooves is sometimes itself a catalogued variety.
3. Lettered. An inscription running round the edge – a motto, a denomination, a mint or a date.
4. Ornamented. A repeating decorative pattern rather than plain grooves or letters.
5. Segmented. Alternating reeded and plain sections, used to make a coin identifiable by touch.

What an edge inscription records

Edge lettering is not decoration. Depending on the country and the era it carries the denomination in words, the metal fineness, a mint name or monogram, a date, or a motto. Because it was applied in a separate operation, it can also be inverted relative to the faces – and on some issues both orientations exist as separate catalogue entries, exactly like the die varieties described in the guide to the circulation series.

The edge as a check

• Cast copies. A cast coin usually shows a seam, rounded grooves or a slightly rough edge, because casting cannot reproduce the sharpness of a struck rim – the reasoning in the guide to telling an original from a copy.
• Altered dates and mint marks. Work on the faces often disturbs the edge nearby; a break in the reeding is a warning.
• Mounted coins. Jewellery mounts leave flattened or filed sections that no cleaning will restore.
• Wrong edge for the type. A reeded edge where the catalogue says plain means the coin is not what it claims.
• Wear pattern. Edges wear evenly in circulation; localised flattening means damage, not use, as separated in the guide to coin condition.

How to examine and record it

1. Hold the coin by the faces, not the edge, and turn it under raking light – the same lighting that reveals relief in the guide to photographing a collection.
2. Read any lettering fully before assuming it is a motto; the denomination and fineness are often there.
3. Note the type in your list beside the year and mint, per the guide to cataloguing a collection.
4. Photograph the edge separately when it carries an inscription. Almost nobody does, which is why edge images are so useful later.

The open archive holds 855 Soviet coins, most shown from both faces – a reminder that the third side is the one a collection usually forgets to record.

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