Rumistacker

I have the right vehicle for your trip aboard😇
 

Read the link on metals across borders i posted.  There is a discussion there or on a link in the page that discusses this cash legal tender value rather than metal value.   It would appear that if declared as a monetary cash instrument you might get away with it but personally I doubt it.  It's very hard to determine what they mean by cash and financial instruments given that other items such as gold bullion have different and vague definitions.  It all goes round in circles and I think it's deliberate to be honest.  The legal tender argument only really works for circulating legal tender is my assessment but it would be great if that was different.  I wouldn't want to take the risk but if you do and it works out please do let us hear about it.  It would definitely result in a big discussion with customs and you'd need your legal case carefully laid out to demonstrate to them.

The potential issue is gold - Gold went VAT free b/c of an EU directive. 

My first Silver purchase in what seems like an age.  
 
I might get the fine wire wool and silver dip out to shine and spruce Victoria up a bit 😉 😂 

She contrasts nicely with her Gold little Sister 😃 

 

Not seen that before, although I have seen some data from Chards on an informal basis.
A few interesting points;
The small (5 -8 ppt) silver content of the late younghead sovs have a huge influence of the colour, compared to modern ones.
The first modern day sov, 1957, has nothing in but gold and copper and isn't the red colour of current issues which have an identical composition.
The very large amount of silver in the Sydney mint aussie style coins certainly shows in the colour, and to a lesser extent in the early London ones.
One thing that does appear to be true though; you don't need that much silver to have a huge influence on the colour, tempering that awful copper tone.
The early 20th century coins from Edward and George are similar to the late Victorian ones (1887 onwards) in that a lot of them are quite reddish but you also see a lot of very yellow ones. Would be interesting to see data from these.

Not 100% on this one but it appears that metallurgy was still experimental during queen Victoria's reign and even into the 20th century refining techniques were still being developed. An extract from the gold sovereign by Michael Marsh;
"In 1859 a quantity of gold valued at £167,539 was ordered to be melted and returned to the Bank as unfit for coin due its brittle nature; this gold in fact contained small quantities of antimony, arsenic and lead. Ansell asked to experiment with this gold, and although confronted by several obstacles, including the aversion to change, he was eventually given permission. His experiments brought a successful conclusion and as a result all of the gold was re-wrought at very little additional cost, and without annealing. The new sovereigns were in fact so tough that an ordinary man could not break them even with the aid of a pair of pliers. For his efforts Ansell received a letter of thanks from the Master of the Mint plus £100."
This hints to me that most of the time the gold used in coins at the mint was probably not pure in any measurable sense that we would expect today, but was likely judged by its physical properties and colour. They perhaps made do with what they were given and alloyed it with metals they had available at the mint, which depending on the mint would have included silver, copper, zinc and tin. Pure speculation on what they used in the alloy on my part there, but the gold was evidently not 'pure' and may be attributable to the colour of the older coins. 
Today you can expect the gold to be pure, and the alloy also to be pure copper with no silver, tin or zinc, hence the horrible rose gold colour of the new coins. Perhaps the impurities in the older coins can attribute to the colour somewhat, or possibly the age/oxidisation of the copper in the alloy has something to do with it? If so then the newer sovereigns may also turn a more pleasant colour with time?

22 ct has been the rule for many a day, as you say, but I think various amounts of silver has been used along with the copper at times. The current finish seems to emphasise the redness, almost seems "lacquered".

I've never seen a copperish sov from the 50's

No sovereigns, so far, are pure gold, even the early 1489 Henry VII to 1561 Elizabeth I issues.
All modern sovereigns, 1817 to date, are 22 carat gold (sorry but "22ct pure gold" is an oxymoron).
As I have stated, the Royal Mint are incorrect when they claim that modern sovereigns are made of red gold (22 parts gold, 2 parts copper), as most sovereigns from 1817 until Elizabeth II have included about 3 parts per thousand silver. Even some QEII sovereigns contain some silver.
It may be pedantic of me, but I consider "rose gold" is a jeweller's romantic nomenclature for "red gold". Where I have stated "red gold" the expression is interchangeable with the expression "rose gold".
Some "modern sovereigns" also contain traces of other metals, including iron, lead, and platinum, if our Niton machine can be believed.
I think most TSF forum members will already know that 24ct gold is pure gold.
Until electrolytic gold refining became common is the last score or so of years, most gold was only refined to about 995 parts per thousand, and even now, there is little point refining beyond 999.9 ppt, although the Royal Canadian Mint use 999.99 mainly as a marketing exercise, but it could also be ueful in some scientific applications. Completely pure gold, with zero impurities, exists more in theory than in actual practice. 
Interesting but almost useless trivia fact: there are numerous isotopes of gold. Only one, 197Au, is stable, the other 36 known are radio-active, most with short half-lives, and almost non-existent in nature. A friend who worked in the nuclear industry for most of his life did not know this. I would be wasting my time trying to educate him, so I did not, and will not, bother trying!

1884M in UNC grade

Or the originals?