1/4oz American Gold Eagles

I think they put too much silver (3%) into eagles and they're too pale; they would be better off with the 3-4 parts per thousand of the alloy sovs were made from.  You don't need much silver to lift the colour quite substantially, and I think AGE's have too much.

Anyway, here are a couple of quarter ounce eagles that I picked up the other day.  What do you folks think?  

I stay away from 22ct gold coins.

I am only collecting scraps of 9ct and up... to use for AceBullion..

These to me would be scrap. I know. I would melt them down with out hesitation.

I love the eagle picture, I would of brought this coin in silver if they had done it.I only have one and happy with it. It's definitely not a sovereign

tray wrote:I love the eagle picture, I would of brought this coin in silver if they had done it.I only have one and  happy with it. It's definitely not a sovereign

I've got a few nice silver eagles with the eagle with outstretched wings design (type 2), and a couple of 2012s with the type 1 eagle and shield design.  The U.S. mint does have a really nice strike on their bullion - You can see why the Merkins love their Eagles.

I think I actually prefer the look of the larger silver eagles to these - I've got a 1/10 gold eagle as well.  I have seen 1oz eagles in one of the gold shops in Qatar or Dubai.  It was the first time I'd seen an eagle in the flesh.  The colour is quite pale, especially if you see them next to fine gold coins.

Interestingly, the spec for the AGE mandates 3% silver in the alloy, which is quite a lot for a gold coin.  Normally something like 0.3% is enough to lift the colour from the rose gold you get on alloys containing just gold and copper.  Lawrence Chard (of Chard's fame) has some stats where he zapped a bunch of Victorian sovereigns with an XRF machine, and most of them sat around 0.3%-0.4% silver in the alloy.

Originally, I suspect that was just because of the limitations of the refining technology they had in the day, but I suspect they would have gone to deliberately including some silver in the alloy later on.  If you ever look at a date run of Machins (i'll put up a photo sometime) you can see the alloy changing colour as they put less and less silver in it with successive years.  You can also see it a bit in Vrenellis and Roosters - the later re-strikes tend to have less silver in the alloy than the turn of the century ones when they were still in circulation.

For some reason, these days the Royal Mint insists on using a copper/gold alloy with no silver at all.  The specification in the Coinage act only mandates the gold content and with today's refining tech they can buy much more pure gold - so they just use gold and copper in the alloy.  However, given that the silver needed to lift the colour would cost about 1.5p per coin, I have no idea why they don't do this.  PAMP-MMTC and Perth Mint (with their reproduction oz sovs) both make a point of emphasizing the colour in their sovs, so it must be blindingly obvious that folks would prefer it.

I have no idea what the Royal Munt's motivations are in this regard, but I'm sure it has something to do with somebody's bonus, or maybe they're trying to steer folks onto higher margin product lines such as Brits.

An interesting read. Thank you for putting it up I have noticed a big difference with modern sovereign to the older counterparts. I did wonder to how much silver and other metals were included in their manufacturing technique. The lighter yellow coloured coins of the early sovereigns I do like but it does come under personal preference.

Admin wrote:I stay away from 22ct gold coins.

I am only collecting scraps of 9ct and up... to use for AceBullion..

These to me would be scrap. I know.  I would melt them down with out hesitation.

It occurs to me that I've got a few damaged sovereigns  - polished ones or ones with damage on the face.  If you're after some 22ct scrap at some point, I'd be open to reasonable offers.

I cant right now but I might take you up on that if someone doesn't soon.

Admin wrote:I cant right now but I might take you up on that if someone doesn't soon.

Not in any great tearing hurry, but I've got 3 plus a half that are polished or have some damage on the surface.  Maybe a bit marginal to call them scrap, but the damage is pretty obvious if you take halfway decent photos of them, and I'm a bit too honest to try and pull the wool over potential buyers' eyes.  So, they're buy-for-weight bullion at best.