Every coin in your drawer is a tiny time machine. It just never tells you where it has been.
Pick up an old coin and the questions start. Who paid with it? What did it buy? And what was this town even called back then? A kingdom, an empire, a duchy with a name nobody can spell?
Now flip the question around. Stand where you are right now and ask: what money changed hands on this exact spot 100, 500 or 1,000 years ago? Until recently that took a library card and a free weekend. Now it takes about three seconds.
Coinography.NET is a free web app that puts coins on a world map and lets you scroll through time. Point at any place, pick a year, and it shows you the coins of whoever ruled there.
It runs on the coin collection behind Coinoscope, the app that identifies coins from a photo. So when Coinography shows you a coin, it is a real coin, with a link to the page where it lives.
The map does the history homework for you. Its borders change with the year, from 123,000 BC all the way to today. Empires grow, split and vanish while you drag a slider.
1. Drop a pin. Click anywhere on the map. Too lazy to find your own house? Tap the target button and the map flies to wherever you are standing.
2. Meet the locals. The territory under your pin lights up, and the app tells you whose land it is. Then it jumps straight to the most recent year it has coins for.
3. Grab the slider. Drag it back and the borders redraw themselves. Your pin stays put while the countries around it come and go.
4. Browse the coins. A strip under the map shows coins from that place and year. Click one to see where it comes from.
5. Follow the bars. Beside the coins is a list of years, each with a bar that shows how many coins it has. Long bar, busy mint. Click a year and the whole map travels there.
Need finer control? The two arrow buttons move exactly one year at a time. Hold one down and the years start to fly.
Let's take the app for a spin. Drop a pin on Paris and pull the slider back as far as it goes. Then walk forward.
1. 323 BC. Alexander the Great has just died on the other side of the world. Paris? The map shows no state here at all. No king, no mint, no change for the bakery.
2. 500 AD. The Franks are in charge. They will give France its name, but sadly not many coins for our collection.
3. 1000 AD. Welcome to the Kingdom of France. Kings, castles and, finally, money with a crown on it.
4. 1815. Napoleon has just met his Waterloo. The coin strip still shows a copper décime with a big "N" on it. Coins outlast emperors.
5. 1875. The Third Republic is up and running. The app finds 22 coins from this one year, from humble centimes upward.
6. 1914. Gold 20-franc coins sit in the strip, minted in the year the First World War broke out and changed everything.
7. Today. Euros. Less romantic, much easier to use at the bakery.
That is 2,300 years of history, and your pin never moved an inch.
- Your hometown. Tap the location button and see who ran your street 200 years ago. Family dinners will never be the same.
- Your grandparents' birth year. Set the slider to it and look at the coins they grew up with.
- Empire hopping. Pin Berlin, slide to 1900 and keep going back. Watch the label switch from Germany to Prussia, and the coins switch with it.
- Busiest mint award. Pin a country and find the year with the longest bar. Then work out what happened that year.
- Ocean drop. Pin the middle of the Atlantic. No coins, no country, just fish. Some places are better for diving than collecting.
History books tell you who ruled. Coins show you what people actually carried in their pockets. Coinography.NET puts the two side by side, on one map, for any spot on Earth.
Open Coinography.net on your computer or phone and drop your first pin. It works right in the browser, with nothing to install and no sign-up.
And when you find a mystery coin of your own, snap a photo with Coinoscope. It will tell you what it is. Coinography will tell you where it has been.
2025 marked a turning point for modern numismatics, as pop culture themes, bold mint artistry, competitive registries, and headline-making auctions brought new energy and new collectors into the hobby—while preserving the depth and credibility that define coin collecting.
Explore the fascinating history and scale of the most mass-produced coins ever created — from humble cents to widely used rupees and euros. These coins have been minted in the tens or even hundreds of billions. Learn how their designs, cultural relevance, and sheer volume have made them enduring icons in the world of money.
Find answers to the most common questions about using Coinoscope, from identifying and valuing coins to managing your collection and subscriptions. It helps both new and experienced users get the most out of the app’s features and understand how free and premium options work.
Download Coinoscope app on your Android or iPhone for FREE and start identifying coins!