Wow thanks for the different perspectives, both of you! I hadn't even considered the fact that some of these are silver coins that might be worth more in silver than their coin face value. A silver dollar that is otherwise unremarkable could fetch me over $30? Awesome.
And grouping by decades and seeking out "what coins are valuable during these decades" is the exact reverse of what I worried I'd have to do. I was thinking I'd have to "lens" each coin, check every e-bay listing for it, find the most common selling price, write it down, and go to the next one. The foreign coins will be a little harder but I can just do a search for "10 dinar coins minted between 1897 and 1945" and I'm sure something useful will come from it.
Pre-WWII coins seem really interesting to me, because countries changed their names or ceased to exist. So even though the coins might not be worth anything "as coins" they're still a piece of world history. I'd hate to see them lost. Someday, someone with ancestors who grew up "behind the iron curtain" might want to know about their family history, what the world looked like back then. A single coin can represent so much, to a seeker.
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