One great upgrade for board games is swapping out the standard money–usually cardboard coins–for metal coins. Shiny, weighty coins provide a satisfying experience. But no one seems to make a really solid, universal set. Here, I try to show the best choices and imagine the ideal coin set.

A Note About Poker Chips

I dislike metal “coins” that look like poker chips: a big number in the middle surrounded by a random flourish, sometimes even with a characteristic striped edge, and having the same design on both sides. Sometimes they’re even all the same size, like poker chips.

But it you don’t mind the look and feel, then Iron Clays poker chips are considered by many to be the luxury choice, and decently priced at 60¢ each. But other good choices are available cheaply. Board Game Geek even offers their own branded set.

Also, some coins are cast rather than stamped, which tends to make them thick and highly detailed but not at all shiny. Some people will like this, but I feel it makes them look and feel like sports medals rather than coins, so they tend toward the poker chip side too.

A Note About Altering the Metal

You can’t alter the design or denomination of a coin, but with a little gold, silver, or copper Rub & Buff, you can alter its metal. Just one tube will do a hundred coins and probably probably other things you want metallic as well. The material is a wax paint that you rub on and buff when dry. It never becomes truly shiny, tho.

Another choice is gold (or silver) leaf. You can get fake gold leaf quite cheap, altho it will tarnish over time unlike real gold. Real gold leaf is pretty pricey.

The Perfect Set

In order to be useful across a wide variety of games, the ideal bank would have a wide range of coins. I think the perfect set would look like this:

Small copper (or bronze) 1
Medium copper 2
Large copper 5
Small silver 10
Medium silver 20
Large silver 50
Small gold 100
Medium gold 200
Large gold 500

A nearly perfect bank could skip the 2 and 200 and forgo the 20 and 50 for a 25. In both cases, you could use gemstones to represent even higher denominations:

Ruby gem 1000 (square)
Emerald gem 2000 (rectangular)
Diamond gem 5000 (circular)

Here is my fanciful attempt at a perfect bank: the coins of the fictional northern European country of Norstonia in three tiers: copper bits, silver shillings, and gold krowns. Each of the 1s features an image of the nation’s founder; each of the 2s features an important queen; and each of the 5s features the current king. (The portraits were created with AI.)

Number

In terms of the number of coins, you can find advice here from an avid gamer with lots of experience with coin-using games. The short version: at least 100 coins, heavy on the the lower denominations.

My Personal Bank

I bought a double set of the John Company 2 coins and supplemented them with coins I found in good numbers on eBay:

18.4mm Polish 20 groszy
23mm Portuguese 50 centavo
26mm Mexican 100 peso

These I colored gold with quite a shiny gold spray paint. Then I recolored the John Company 5 and 10 silver with chrome spray paint and gave the 5s a dark wash so they would seem like a silver alloy.

This gives me:

25mm copper 1
25mm nickel 2
28mm silver 5
33mm silver 10
18.4mm gold 20
23mm gold 50
26mm gold 100

What’s Available

What follows is an attempt to document the available metal coins that are, in my opinion suitable for building a bank. Board Game Geek has a good review of various games with metal coins, but I have left many of these off because they are only one or two denominations or look ugly or like tokens.

Wehrlegig

Wehrlegig offers a terrific set of coins in 1, 2, 5, and 10 denominations for John Company: Second Edition that evoke British East India Company coins of the 1700s and 1800s. These would make for a nice base set.

One slight drawback with these is their large size. The 1 and 2 are both 25mm, while the 10 is a whopping 33mm. But you could recolor the gold-tone 5 and 10 silver and add a couple of gold-colored coins to represent 25 and 100.

You could get a small silver 1 and a large copper 5 and say the John Company coins are 1 penny and 2, 5, and 10 “shillings” (worth 20, 50, and 100 pence). Then get one gold coin for either 2 or 5 “pounds” (worth 200 or 500). This one is 25mm and maintains the theme; it’s expensive, but you only need a few.

Stonemaier

Stonemaier Games makes a beautiful set for Scythe in 1, 3, 5, 10, and 20 denominations. Some don’t care for the style, but I like it–altho I don’t care for the 5: it features Soviet iconography, which is out of place for most games. These are also budget-friendly, at just 31¢ per coin. The 20s are 30mm, which means they should be silver. That would allow for a small, medium, and large gold 50, 100, and 500.

Note that there are special edition 2 and 50 denominations available from select sellers. I like the 2, but the 50 is huge, has a dubious Asian design, and is purple, so it comes off as unfortunately clownish.

Stonemaier also makes a nice set for Viticulture at 69¢ each in 1, 2, and 5 denominations, but the obverse of all feature wine grapes and a big V, which is very game-specific. The sizing follows a simplistic “bigger is better” approach to making their values clear.

However, you could recolor them all gold and say that ₤ (Italian lire, like the British £ for libra, means “pound”) is a higher tier of coin and equal to 100, 200, and 500 “pence” or “centos”.

CZYY

CZYY makes a set that features coins in the denominations 1, 5, 10, and 50. These are nice, altho the obverses all have the same stylized dragon design. They’re just 42¢ each.

They also make a generic fantasy gold piece with a flat dragon design I don’t care for. But it comes up in every Amazon search for metal coins.

Meeple Source

Meeple Source sells the Stonemaier sets, including the Scythe special edition 2 and 50, as well as their own set. Their fantasy set is solid, but pricey at $1 per coin. At half that price, I’d consider them an almost ideal set, altho I don’t love the monster theme.

There are small and large copper 1 and 5, small and large silver 10 and 20, and small and large gold 50 and 100. The exact sizes are not given, but they are probably 20 to 30mm with 2mm steps.

Top Shelf Gamer

Top Shelf Gamer is a board game token seller on Etsy as well as on their own site. They offer a nice-looking set of coins for the game Rococo that are 1, 5, 10, and 20 on the smaller side (18 to 24mm), but the designs are the same front and back–and from coin to coin, except for the number. And I’m not sure why anyone would make the 1 gold-colored or the five blue. On the plus side, they’re just 40¢ apiece.

Note that there is a very similar set available elsewhere in bronze 1, silver 5, and gold 10, and you can buy them individually. I think these are even nicer, altho they still feature the same design on both sides.

This set in particular could be colored gold and said to represent 1, 5, and 10 “crowns” (and fill out the 100, 500, and 1000 denominations), while the other coins only represent “pence” or “centos”.

They also offer fantasy, Egyptian, Norse and other sets but these are undenominated and not particularly good looking. Their Roman coins are beautiful, tho, and rather large at 26 and 30mm, and sold in groups of single coins.

They also sell a beautiful set of Roman game coins in 1, 3, and 5 denominations. They’re big at 25, 30, and 30mm and priced at 75¢ apiece. But they can be purchased in groups of individual coins, so you could fill out a bank with just one or two of them or color them all gold to represent higher value 1, 3, and 5 “pounds” or “crowns” or whatever.

Campaign Coins

Campaign Coins makes a variety of coins that include a nice set with a wide collection of denominations, altho they are pricey at $1.10 each. The standard set is just 1, 5, and 20, but they offer groups of individual coins, albeit at higher prices. These are 18, 22, and 26.5mm.

Unfortunately, they made some odd choices for the design in some cases, including irregular shapes, fake-looking distressing, and mixing eras, sometimes on the same coin. Still, it’s a pretty handsome collection, and includes not only 50 (which is very nice) and 100, but 500, 1000, 5000, and even 10000 denominations. These maintain the “bigger is better” approach and go up to 36.5mm–nearly the size of an Eisenhower dollar.

No set is closer to my ideal bank and yet so consistently “off” in frustrating ways. They’re meant to look like crude Spanish colonial cob coins (AKA pirate treasure), but the designs are of the formal European mint style, so it’s jarring.

The company also offers some more fanciful sets, altho they are more token-like than coin-like. I do kind of like the Island Siege coins, especially the little dime-sized 1.

Tokens Garden

Tokens Garden is an Etsy store that sells a variety of board gaming tokens, including coins, altho they border on being poker chips. They have a couple of nice small sets, but not one with higher denominations.

One thing I like in particular about their offerings is that they sell groups of single coins and even offer them in different colors. So you could easily fill out a bank with one of their 5 coins, for example, without buying a whole set.

Their pirate coins are modeled on 8-escudo cobs with a clear “8” on them, so you might possibly pair that with other pirate coins based on other denominations of escudo cobs.

Aegir Games

Miniatures Marget still has some of Aegir Games’ metal coins for Europa Universalis in 1, 5, and 10. They feature realistic designs reminiscent of the 1600s and are clearly denominated on the reverse. Colored gold, they could be the top tier of a bank, representing 1, 5, and 10 crowns (100, 500, and 1000 coppers).

I can’t determine their size, but based on photos of them being held, I estimate them as 20, 22, and 25mm.

Broken Token

The Broken Token makes a wide variety of coins, including some kind of ugly (but denominated) ones for Agra and Seven Wonders and Floating Island, as well as some for sci-fi settings.

They also make gorgeous historic gold coins of two designs: Early English Nobles and Spanish Pieces of Eight. Both being 35mm, these are too similar to use together. They’re also expensive, at $1.67 each, so you might save these for your top-tier 500 or 1000 denomination gold piece, of which you only need a few.

They also offer a bunch of different ancient, medieval, and Renaissance coins without denominations. Nearly all of them are very handsome.

They sell these in individual packs rather than sets, so you could buy them selectively and recolor certain ones to build a bank without needing them to have denominations.

To simplify a bit, drop the 2 and 200:

copper 15mm as 1
copper 25mm as 5
silver 20mm as 10
silver 25mm as 20
silver 30mm as 50
gold 20 mm as 100
gold 35mm as 500

Cryptic Creative

If you like your coins non-coin-shaped, Cryptic Creative offers three different sets aimed at D&D players. Each is denominated 1, 5, 10, 25, and 100. They all depict monsters: one is a variety, another is a different variety (if there’s a theme, I can’t find it) and one very silly set is all mimics (one of which is a modern flush toilet). All are expensive.

Moedus & Co

Moedus & Co make a great variety of lovely metal coins for gaming, but they are closely aligned with specific games and often either don’t have denominations or have the same design on both sides. However, I’m partial to their Lisboa set in 1, 5, and 10 denominations. They are 21mm, 24mm and 27mm.

Others, Undenominated

Golonko is an Etsy store that sells game tokens. Their coin offerings include a really beautiful set of one 28mm silver and one 21mm gold coin modeled on the Prague grosch and Hungarian florin.

At nearly $2 apiece with shipping, these would be a luxurious way to fill the 50 and 100 denominations of a set that stops at 20.

Mopanxi sells a very nice replica of a 1652 Navarre silver doubloon at 25mm that could likewise help fill out a set at just 47¢ each.

Another Etsy store, True Black Forge, offers a very nice set of two different sizes and designs of silver and two more of gold. These are 22 and 26 and 26 and 30mm and average a tick over $1.

These would be quite good if augmented by some 1 and 5 coins in copper.

The Dragon’s Hoard is a good-looking fantasy set, but its small copper, medium silver, and large gold coins fall prey to the simplistic sizing issue and don’t feature denominations. Still, they might be useful to fill out a bank. I can’t figure out the size of these.

Leib Games makes a set of “pirate coins” modeled on Spanish 8 escudo cob coins that use the “bigger is better” system and have identical designs. They do look good, tho, and could help fill out a set, since you can buy each type separately.

Seven Seas Pirates makes a similar set in bronze, silver, and gold modeled so closely on the 2 escudo cob that you can see they’re all identically labeled “2”.

Beverly Oaks has their own pirate coin, explicitly described as being modeled on the 2 escudo but without a clear “2” on them. Moreover, these appear to be a variety of shapes, which is more realistic for crudely minted cob coins. They also offer a set in gold, silver, and copper (or maybe that’s supposed to be bronze), but they’re identical except for color.

Numerous companies sell Chinese fortune tokens in a few different sizes–commonly 20mm and 24mm. There are fair number of complaints that most of these are thin, but they certainly look good and come cheap. They seem to be the inspiration for the Scythe bronze 1 coins, but these you can get in bulk.

A shout out to the Phalanx Games coins for Nanty Narking, a gorgeous Victorian shilling (20mm) and crown (25mm) set that is sold out everywhere. Note tho that you can get real (albeit later) pre-decimalization shillings on eBay pretty cheaply.

Medieval Collectibles offer a large selection of fantasy coins as well as historical coins, most of which are beautiful, but nearly all of which have no denomination and are rather expensive at more than $1 apiece.

As for the unusual shapes, there’s the King’s Coffers set, designed for Dungeons & Dragons–but you may find yourself wearying of reminding players which coin is silver versus electrum or platinum, and the designs and holes punched in some seem like afterthoughts.

There’s a similar three coin set of a different design.

Gems

In order to go to high denominations, you’ll probably need to use gems or small ingots. Red rubies, green emeralds, and white diamonds are the obvious choices, altho blue sapphires are a fourth alternative.

Real Coins

Of course, the best coins are real coins. You can buy bulk lots of foreign coins for fairly cheap on eBay, but they’re random assortments. I’ve owned some of these, and they’re fun to look at and use for treasure hunts, but they are too varied to use as game coins except for a rule like “anything copper is 1; anything silver 10; and anything gold is 100”.

Hobby of Kings on Etsy offers multiple nice sets of real foreign coins in 1, 2, 5, and 10 denominations. It’s too bad they don’t go further, but these could be the base of the perfect bank. You could buy all three sets, discard two of the 10s, and color one set copper, one set silver, and one set gold and have a perfect bank that closely matches my ideal: 1, 2, 5 bits, 1, 2, 5 shillings, and 1, 2, 5, 10 crowns.

If you do some searching on eBay, you can find some lots of foreign coins, usually old ones that are no longer valid, being sold for decent prices. Mexican, Colombian, Portuguese, Greek, and other nations’ coins are often nicely denominated and sized.

But it’s tricky finding good-sized lots. A good technique is to search for “roll coins”. That tends to produce rolls of coins being sold as a lot, which means the coins are all the same.

You might get lucky and find a whole set from the same country being sold together. However, these tend to be quite new coins, which are often quite boring (lacking portraits, wildlife, and other decoration), altho the Lithuanian euro coins have a great obverse of a knight on horseback.

As of this writing, there seems to be a glut of 1950s French franc coins that would make a pretty complete set all by themselves. But the 1, 2, and 5 franc coins are aluminum, which is very lightweight and unsatisfying.

I bought some Polish 20 groszy, Portuguese 50 centavo, and some Mexican 100 peso coins as well as some pre-decimalization British shillings.

Paper Money

If it’s paper money you’re interested in, there are some very nice sets available that I would call ideal. Board Game Geek has a series of great posts on games with paper money.

Scratch Cash on Amazon has a great set of 75% size Euro banknotes: 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 denominations. But if you like ’em big, there are also 125% versions. There are also Spanish banknotes in 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, and 1000 pesetas at full size. And also old Deutsche marks.

Of course, there are plenty of companies that sell fake US currency, most of which is labeled as motion picture props. These are full-size and very effective at a glance, but often feature the word “COPY” prominently. (The Secret Service has sometimes seized prop cash that looks too real, because extras pocket it and try to spend it.)

For an old-timey feel, Broken Token has some great antique-looking US gold certificate banknotes.