Obverse and its opposite, reverse, refer to the two flat faces of coins and some other two-sided objects, including paper money, flags, seals, medals, drawings, old master prints and other works of art, and printed fabrics. In this usage, obverse means the front face of the object and reverse means the back face. The obverse of a coin is commonly called heads, because it often depicts the head of a prominent person, and the reverse tails.

In fields of scholarship outside numismatics, the term front is more commonly used than obverse, while usage of reverse is widespread.

The equivalent terms used in codicology, manuscript studies, print studies and publishing are "recto" and "verso".


Generally, the side of a coin with the larger-scale image will be called the obverse (especially if the image is a single head) and, if that does not serve to distinguish them, the side that is more typical of a wide range of coins from that location will be called the obverse. Following this principle, in the most famous of ancient Greek coins, the tetradrachm of Athens, the obverse is the head of Athena and the reverse is her owl. Similar versions of these two images, both symbols of the state, were used on the Athenian coins for more than two centuries.

In the many republics of ancient Greece,[1] such as Athens or Corinth, one side of their coins would have a symbol of the state, usually their patron goddess or her symbol, which remained constant through all of the coins minted by that state, which is regarded as the obverse of those coins. The opposite side may have varied from time to time. In ancient Greek monarchical coinage, the situation continued whereby a larger image of a deity, is called the obverse, but a smaller image of a monarch appears on the other side which is called the reverse.


Obverse of the tetradrachm of Alexander the Great, intended to be seen as a deity, wearing the attributes of the hero, Heracles/Hercules. 325 BC.
In a Western monarchy, it has been customary, following the tradition of the Hellenistic monarchs and then the Roman emperors, for the currency to bear the head of the monarch on one side, which is almost always regarded as the obverse. This change happened in the coinage of Alexander the Great, which continued to be minted long after his death. After his conquest of ancient Egypt, he allowed himself to be depicted on the obverse of coins as a god-king, at least partly because he thought this would help secure the allegiance of the Egyptians, who had regarded their previous monarchs, the pharaohs, as divine. The various Hellenistic rulers who were his successors followed his tradition and kept their images on the obverse of coins.


Solidus of Justinian II after 705. Christ is on the obverse (left), the emperor on the reverse.
A movement back to the earlier tradition of a deity being placed on the obverse occurred in Byzantine coinage, where a head of Christ became the obverse and a head or portrait (half or full-length) of the emperor became considered the reverse. The introduction of this style in the gold coins of Justinian II from the year 695 provoked the Islamic Caliph, Abd al-Malik, who previously had copied Byzantine designs, replacing Christian symbols with Islamic equivalents, finally to develop a distinctive Islamic style, with just lettering on both sides of their coins. This script alone style then was used on nearly all Islamic coinage until the modern period. The type of Justinian II was revived after the end of the Byzantine Iconoclasm, and with variations remained the norm until the end of the Empire. Without images, therefore, it is not always easy to tell which side will be regarded as the obverse without some knowledge.


Silver rupee using Mughal conventions, but minted by the British East India Company Madras Presidency between 1817 and 1835. On rupees, the side that carries the name of the ruler is considered the obverse.
After 695 Islamic coins avoided all images of persons and usually contained script alone. The side expressing the Six Kalimas (the Islamic profession of faith) is usually defined as the obverse.

A convention exists typically to display the obverse to the left (or above) and the reverse to the right (or below) in photographs and museum displays, but this is not invariably observed.

Modern coins
The form of currency follows its function, which is to serve as a readily accepted medium of exchange of value. Normally, this function rests on a state as guarantor of the value: either as trustworthy guarantor of the kind and amount of metal in a coin, or as powerful guarantor of the continuing acceptance of token coins.

Traditionally, most states have been monarchies where the person of the monarch and the state were equivalent for most purposes. For this reason, the obverse side of a modern piece of currency is the one that evokes that reaction by invoking the strength of the state, and that side almost always depicts a symbol of the state, whether it be the monarch or otherwise.

If not provided for on the obverse, the reverse side usually contains information relating to a coin's role as medium of exchange (such as the value of the coin). Additional space typically reflects the issuing country's culture or government, or evokes some aspect of the state's territory.

Specific currencies
Coins of the Eurozone

National side (obverse) of a Lithuanian €2 coin
Regarding the euro, some confusion regarding the obverse and reverse of the euro coins exists. Officially, as agreed by the informal Economic and Finance Ministers Council of Verona in April 1996, and despite the fact that a number of countries have a different design for each coin, the distinctive national side for the circulation coins is the obverse and the common European side (which includes the coin value) is the reverse.[2] This rule does not apply to the collector coins as they do not have a common side.

A number of the designs used for obverse national sides of euro coins were taken from the reverse of the nations' former pre-euro coins. Several countries (such as Spain and Belgium) continue to use portraits of the reigning monarch; while the Republic of Ireland continues to use the State Arms, as on its earlier issues.

Coins of Japan

¥500 coin, the obverse showing a Paulownia plant, the reverse showing the value "500", and the year 2006 (平成十八年, heisei juu-hachi nen)
In Japan, from 1897 to the end of World War II, the following informal conventions existed:

the Chrysanthemum Throne (or Chrysanthemum Crest), representing the imperial family, appeared on all coins, and this side was regarded as the obverse;
the other side, on which the date appeared, was regarded as the reverse.
The Chrysanthemum Crest was no longer used after the war, and so (equally informally):

the side on which the date appears continues to be regarded as the reverse;
the side without the date is regarded as the obverse.
Coins of the United Kingdom

A left-facing portrait of Edward VIII on the obverse of United Kingdom and Empire coins would have broken tradition.
Following ancient tradition, the obverse of coins of the United Kingdom (and predecessor kingdoms going back to the middle ages) almost always feature the head of the monarch.

By tradition, each British monarch faces in the opposite direction of his or her predecessor; this is said to date from 1661, with Charles II turning his back on Oliver Cromwell. Hence, George VI faced left and the present Queen faces right. The only break in this tradition almost occurred in 1936 when Edward VIII, believing his left side to be superior to his right, insisted on his image facing left, as his father's image had. No official legislation prevented his wishes being granted, so left-facing obverses were prepared for minting. Very few examples were struck before he abdicated later that year, but none bearing this portrait ever were issued officially. When George VI acceded to the throne, his image was placed to face left, implying that, had any coins been minted with Edward's portrait the obverses would have depicted Edward facing right and maintained the tradition.

Coin flipping, coin tossing, or heads or tails is the practice of throwing a coin in the air and checking which side is showing when it lands, in order to choose between two alternatives, heads or tails, sometimes used to resolve a dispute between two parties. It is a form of sortition which inherently has two possible outcomes. The party who calls the side that the coin lands on wins.

During a coin toss, the coin is thrown into the air such that it rotates edge-over-edge several times. Either beforehand or when the coin is in the air, an interested party calls "heads" or "tails", indicating which side of the coin that party is choosing. The other party is assigned the opposite side. Depending on custom, the coin may be caught; caught and inverted; or allowed to land on the ground. When the coin comes to rest, the toss is complete and the party who called correctly or was assigned the upper side is declared the winner.

It is possible for a coin to land on its side, usually by landing up against an object (such as a shoe) or by getting stuck in the ground. However, even on a flat surface it is possible for a coin to land on its edge. A computational model suggests that the chance of a coin landing on its edge and staying there is about 1 in 6000 for an American nickel.[3] Angular momentum typically prevents most coins from landing on their edges unsupported if flipped. Such cases in which a coin does land on its edge are exceptionally rare and in most cases the coin is simply re-flipped.[4]

The coin may be any type as long as it has two distinct sides; it need not be a circulating coin as such. Larger coins tend to be more popular than smaller ones. Some high-profile coin tosses, such as the Cricket World Cup and the Super Bowl, use custom-made ceremonial medallions.[5][6]

Three-way
Three-way coin flips are also possible, by a different process – this can be done either to choose two out of three, or to choose one out of three. To choose two out of three, three coins are flipped, and if two coins come up the same and one different, the different one loses (is out), leaving two players. To choose one out of three, either reverse this (the odd coin out is the winner), or add a regular two-way coin flip between the remaining players as a second step. Note that the three-way flip is 75% likely to work each time it is tried (if all coins are heads or all are tails, each of which occur 1/8 of the time due to the chances being 0.5 by 0.5 by 0.5, the flip is repeated until the results differ), and does not require that "heads" or "tails" be called. A famous example of such a three-way coin flip (choose two out of three) is dramatized in Friday Night Lights (originally a book, subsequently film and TV series), three Texas high school football teams use a three-way coin flip.[7][8] A legacy of this coin flip was to reduce the use of coin flips to break ties in Texas sports, instead using point systems to reduce the frequency of ties.

Use in dispute resolution

The coin toss at the start of Super Bowl XLIII
Coin tossing is a simple and unbiased way of settling a dispute or deciding between two or more arbitrary options. In a game theoretic analysis it provides even odds to both sides involved, requiring little effort and preventing the dispute from escalating into a struggle. It is used widely in sports and other games to decide arbitrary factors such as which side of the field a team will play from, or which side will attack or defend initially; these decisions may tend to favor one side, or may be neutral. Factors such as wind direction, the position of the sun, and other conditions may affect the decision. In team sports it is often the captain who makes the call, while the umpire or referee usually oversees such proceedings. A competitive method may be used instead of a toss in some situations, for example in basketball the jump ball is employed, while the face-off plays a similar role in ice hockey.


Navy-Notre Dame coin toss
Coin flipping is used to decide which end of the field the teams will play to and/or which team gets first use of the ball, or similar questions in football matches, American football games, Australian rules football, volleyball, and other sports requiring such decisions. In the U.S. a specially minted coin is flipped in National Football League games; the coin is then sent to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and other coins of the special series minted at the same time are sold to collectors. The original XFL, a short-lived American football league, attempted to avoid coin tosses by implementing a face-off style "opening scramble," in which one player from each team tried to recover a loose football; the team whose player recovered the ball got first choice. Because of the high rate of injury in these events, it has not achieved mainstream popularity in any football league (a modified version was adopted by X-League Indoor Football, in which each player pursued his own ball), and coin tossing remains the method of choice in American football. (The revived XFL, starting play in 2020, will forego the coin toss altogether and allow that decision to be made as part of a team's home field advantage.

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