How Lustre works
HONEST NUMBERS, LABELLED BY SOURCE
Lustre is a free guide to what American coins are worth. It covers 17 series and 928 year-and-mint issues, with live metal prices, calculators, dealer price comparison and My Stack, a collection tracker that keeps your list in your own browser. A coin photo scanner is in preview and does not identify coins yet. We would rather show you fewer numbers that we can stand behind than a wall of figures we cannot source.
Three kinds of number
| Number | Where it comes from | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Melt value | Metal content times the current spot price, from a metals price feed updated every 15 minutes | The value of the metal alone. Not an offer, and it ignores any collector premium. |
| Facts | Mintage, composition, weight, diameter, designer: public reference tables, cited on each series | Where sources disagree we say so on the page. |
| Grade values | Lustre editorial estimates, October 2026 | Our judgement of a typical retail range, not market data. |
How the estimates are made
The grade values on every page are labelled Lustre editorial estimate, Oct 2026. We built them from a rarity model: a base price curve for common dates in each series, higher curves for scarcer dates and condition rarities, and explicit tables for the key dates, such as the 1893-S Morgan dollar, the 1916-D Mercury dime, the 1909-S V.D.B. cent and the 1937-D three-legged Buffalo nickel. They assume the metal prices in the table below, so for silver coins in lower grades the figure follows the metal and the row is marked as such.
| Reference spot behind the estimates | Price |
|---|---|
| Silver, per troy ounce | $60.52 |
| Gold, per troy ounce | $4141.80 |
| Copper, per pound | $6.50 |
| Nickel, per pound (editorial) | $7.50 |
These estimates are not a quote from any grading service or price guide. They will be replaced by licensed price data, or by ranges from active public listings, when we have the rights to show them, and we will say which source and date we used.
Spot prices, dealer prices and "what dealers pay"
Spot prices for gold, silver, platinum and palladium come from a market data feed (gold-api.com) and are read every 15 minutes. They are for information, not a quote. Lustre stores each reading itself, which is where the history charts and the 24 hour change come from. While less than a day of readings exists, the page says so.
Dealer prices on the compare pages are the one-piece price read from the dealer's own web page every few hours, usually the check or wire price, before shipping and tax. Lustre reads only pages the dealer's robots.txt allows, at a slow rate, with no logins. Where a dealer blocks automated reads, the row says "Check price" and shows no number. Premium over spot = dealer price divided by melt value, minus 1.
"Dealers typically pay" ranges are Lustre editorial estimates, shown with the method: 60% to 90% of melt for scrap gold jewelry, 70% to 90% for scrap silver, 80% to 95% for junk silver coins and 95% to 99% of spot for well-known bullion. They are not quotes. Get two offers before you sell.
Photographing and grading a coin
Grading means judging wear and surface. A Good (G-4) coin has heavy wear with the main design outlined; a Fine (F-12) coin shows the main design clearly; a Very Fine (VF-20) coin has moderate wear on the high points; an Extremely Fine (EF-40) coin has light wear; About Uncirculated (AU-50 to AU-58) has only traces of wear; and Mint State (MS-60 to MS-70) has none. Tilt the coin under a single light to see luster, and photograph it on a plain, neutral background without a flash. Do not clean a coin: cleaning almost always lowers its value.
Images and data licensing
Coin photographs are US government work or Smithsonian National Numismatic Collection images, or images released to the public domain by their photographers, as recorded by Wikimedia Commons. The source, licence and credit for each image are listed on its value page. We do not use images or prices from PCGS, NGC, Greysheet or the US Mint, and we do not scrape any of them. Lustre is not affiliated with them.
What Lustre does not do
- We do not buy or sell coins, and nothing on Lustre is an offer. The Exchange is a planned service and is not live.
- We do not provide appraisals. For insurance or sale of valuable coins, use a recognised grading service or a qualified dealer.
- We do not produce downloadable replica models of coins.
Questions
Are Lustre values real market prices?
No. Grade values on Lustre are editorial estimates made by Lustre in October 2026, not market data, an appraisal or an offer to buy. Melt values are calculated from spot metal prices.
Where do the mintage and composition figures come from?
From public reference tables, including Wikipedia and Landofcoins, cross-checked between sources where possible. Every series page lists its sources.
Contact
Spotted a wrong mintage or composition? Write to [email protected] and we will correct it and note the source.