Sovereigns colour

[LawrenceChard]

On 20/04/2020 at 02:44, cinereus said:

You seem unclear whether it was 2000 and after or after 2000.

Correct! You win this week's star prize - a Super Thanks Trophy.

It is a common mistake many people make to fail to make it clear whether the start and end years are included.

When it happens on our websites, I despair; although when I look at pages from our old sites, 99% of which  I wrote, I often find mistakes, which annoys me even more because they are mine, and they have been out there for years undetected and uncorrected.

[LawrenceChard]

6 minutes ago, cinereus said:

I myself am still unclear 🤣

Ah, I thought you were pointing out the error which I had mentioned.

Our page has now been corrected to read:

Older secondary market sovereigns were minted with a higher concentration of silver which can make them appear more yellow (gold) than the modern sovereigns issued after 2000. Sovereigns issued from 2000 onwards have a higher percentage of copper as the main alloy. This gives them a more reddish or coppery tone which can be confusing for buyers.

Sorry, but I will have to withhold today's star prize (maybe after lunch).

[sixgun]

The replacement of silver with copper has perhaps saved the Royal Mint a little but i suspect their sales would improved if they reverted to the old alloy. i am yet to hear anyone say they prefer the copper cover over the colour of the older sovereigns.

[LawrenceChard]

2 hours ago, cinereus said:

I was. Apologies I didn't recheck the page.

There's no need to apologise.

Back around 1998, we used to offer a reward of a pint for anyone spotting what we called our "deliberate" error.

We awarded a few, but nobody has yet collected their prize.

I would like to reinstate it, but it might cost us too much these days!

[sovereignsteve]

have a look at the colour on this 1959 sovereign

 

[LawrenceChard]

On 18/04/2020 at 17:36, LawrenceChard said:

Why Are Some Sovereigns More Yellow Than Others?

Older secondary market sovereigns were minted with a higher concentration of silver which can make them appear more yellow (gold) than the modern sovereigns issued after 2000. Sovereigns issued from 2000 to now have a higher percentage of copper as the main alloy. This gives them a more reddish or coppery tone which can be confusing for buyers.

I have discussed this with the RM, but they insist that the Coinage Act of 1816 (I think) specifies "red gold" or at least 22 parts of gold, and the balance copper,

In those days, there was almost certainly some residual silver in the gold and/or the copper used for the alloy, so there is always some silver content, which is one of the things that makes gold sovereigns so attractive.

But, some kludge, back in 2000, decided to do things by the book, so that modern sovereigns are a cheap nasty looking coppery red colour.

More to follow when I get some idle moments.

 

Another Wikipedia Error About Gold Sovereign Alloys from a Royal Mint Source

I have written a long diatribe on the Flickr page, too long to repeat here, but it will eventually be incorporated into a blog page.

I also Niton tested about 10 QEII sovereigns from 1958 to 1981, and the averae amount of silver in them was 3 parts per thousand, which explains why they are still a nice, attractive yellow colour.

The next part of this project is to test a selection of the 1983 to 1999 proof sovereigns, then continue through from 2000 onwards, which should reveal exactly when the Mint started taking the 1816 Coinage Act literally.

[Kman]

On 20/04/2020 at 15:18, sixgun said:

The replacement of silver with copper has perhaps saved the Royal Mint a little but i suspect their sales would improved if they reverted to the old alloy. i am yet to hear anyone say they prefer the copper cover over the colour of the older sovereigns.

I actually prefer the copper colour

I think the more yellow gold looks a bit sickly.. if that makes any sense 

[sixgun]

7 minutes ago, Kman said:

I actually prefer the copper colour

I think the more yellow gold looks a bit sickly.. if that makes any sense 

"modern sovereigns are a cheap nasty looking coppery red colour." 
This is how i see them. Almost as if they are fakes. The size of a new penny - looking like a new penny.
i wonder if our eyes see them differently - i remember in an A level physics lesson the teacher had this rotating disc which at different speeds produced different colours. He was spinning it at different speeds and mentioning the colours produced - he got to the red colour and me and another lad didn't see the red he seemed to describe - we saw something more akin to brown. i have done all the colour blind tests and i pass all of them but clearly i see some red colours differently.

[GoldenPhil]

22 minutes ago, sixgun said:

"modern sovereigns are a cheap nasty looking coppery red colour." 
This is how i see them. Almost as if they are fakes. The size of a new penny - looking like a new penny.
i wonder if our eyes see them differently - i remember in an A level physics lesson the teacher had this rotating disc which at different speeds produced different colours. He was spinning it at different speeds and mentioning the colours produced - he got to the red colour and me and another lad didn't see the red he seemed to describe - we saw something more akin to brown. i have done all the colour blind tests and i pass all of them but clearly i see some red colours differently.

Has anyone tested them? Are we sure they are 22k gold? Lol

[sixgun]

3 minutes ago, GoldenPhil said:

Has anyone tested them? Are we sure they are 22k gold? Lol

Even Lawrence Chard says modern sovereigns are a cheap nasty looking coppery red colour - i think someone has tested them at some time or other.

[KDave]

30 minutes ago, sixgun said:

"modern sovereigns are a cheap nasty looking coppery red colour." 
This is how i see them. Almost as if they are fakes. The size of a new penny - looking like a new penny.
i wonder if our eyes see them differently - i remember in an A level physics lesson the teacher had this rotating disc which at different speeds produced different colours. He was spinning it at different speeds and mentioning the colours produced - he got to the red colour and me and another lad didn't see the red he seemed to describe - we saw something more akin to brown. i have done all the colour blind tests and i pass all of them but clearly i see some red colours differently.

The royal pedant mint is the problem, copper and gold in the correct mixture but historically incorrect imo - no silver added makes them look terrible; a soulless modern investment product. The pennies put me off buying random year sovereigns such is my irrational disdain.

[LawrenceChard]

On 05/12/2018 at 16:06, Fathallazf said:

Hello all

A new member!

I was wondering why are the new british sovereigns browner than the earlier ones. Although they both have the same gold purity which is 22k. I know the brown colour comes from the copper content, but still 22k jewelry is vibrant yellow in colour!

i wonder how do they come up with this colour. I mean do they copper plate them to give this effect? Or how   

thanks     

I only just looked to see your are from UAE, after I noticed your comment about 22k jewelry being vibrant yellow. I guess that most of the 22 carat gold jewllery you see is of Indian manufacture, or heavily influenced by Indian traditions. 

Most orientals seem to prefer high carat golds, even using 24ct for jewellery, so when alloyed to 22ct, the preference remains for yellow gold. If you alloy 22ct gold using only gold and copper, you will get a "red" gold; by using only gold and silver, you will get what is often called "green" gold, but it is actually yellow.

Using a ternary alloy with gold, silver, and copper, it is possible to adjust the exact colour, while also providing different working properties.

I have commented about the Royal Mint's interpretation of "crown gold" elsewhere.

[LawrenceChard]

18 hours ago, GoldenPhil said:

Has anyone tested them? Are we sure they are 22k gold? Lol

I have been doing more sovereign testing today, using our Niton tester. Despite starting the project a few years ago, I have still not tested every date of sovereign, but aim to test every date mintmark design combination.

I have tested 21st century sovereign plenty of times, and found no under-carat ones, but have not always recorded the results.

Included in today's tests was an 1887-L British Gold Sovereign Queen Victoria Jubilee Head London Mint. Although this was not the same coin I tested, I posted the results here:

It is quite easy to pick these out of a large batch because they are distinctly more yellow, to make them look even nicer than usual for Victoria's Golden Jubilee year.

 

[Fathallazf]

35 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

I only just looked to see your are from UAE, after I noticed your comment about 22k jewelry being vibrant yellow. I guess that most of the 22 carat gold jewllery you see is of Indian manufacture, or heavily influenced by Indian traditions. 

You are totally right. Many gold shops here in the UAE are influenced or owned by Indians and people in here especially the locals and the Indian expats tend to like higher purity gold in jewellery.     
 

I am originally from Palestine Jerusalem so technically i am stateless. I do live here at moment for work but been jumping from one country to another (mostly Europe) though my life. 
 

I do not like higher carat gold in jewellery, i prefer 18k or less. Unlike in coinage, in my opinion since they are collectibles or bullion, i prefer to hold something which is pure regardless of the metal. The new sovereigns are way too coppery imo even if they allowed. On the other hand, the older sovereigns are an alloy but still looks gold.   
 

Thank you for all the rich information you provided it all made sense for me now.

An unrelated question, do you guys ship to the UAE? 
 

[LawrenceChard]

2 minutes ago, Fathallazf said:

You are totally right. Many gold shops here in the UAE are influenced or owned by Indians and people in here especially the locals and the Indian expats tend to like higher purity gold in jewellery.     
 

I am originally from Palestine Jerusalem so technically i am stateless. I do live here at moment for work but been jumping from one country to another (mostly Europe) though my life. 
 

I do not like higher carat gold in jewellery, i prefer 18k or less. Unlike in coinage, in my opinion since they are collectibles or bullion, i prefer to hold something which is pure regardless of the metal. The new sovereigns are way too coppery imo even if they allowed. On the other hand, the older sovereigns are an alloy but still looks gold.   
 

Thank you for all the rich information you provided it all made sense for me now.

An unrelated question, do you guys ship to the UAE? 
 

Palestine used to have its own coins once:

 

Theoretically it still exists, but... (mustn't get political!)

Alloys are always defined by weight, but if you look at gold alloys by volume, you realise how little gold is in low carat gold such as 9ct, for example this is a page I created in about 1998/9:

https://24carat.co.uk/goldalloysbyvolumeframe.html

IMO, the minimum fineness of gold jewellery should be 18carat, which actually provides an excellent balance of features, colour, hardness, durability, tarnish resistance, heft, etc. The exact alloy can be varied to produce a range of colours, and othr physical properties.

The Royal Mint should remove its head from its anus, listen to opinions, and add about 0.3% of silver to its 22ct gold coins.

I don't actually know if we ship to the UAE, without checking, but the probable answer is yes.

[Foster88]

22 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

I have been doing more sovereign testing today, using our Niton tester. Despite starting the project a few years ago, I have still not tested every date of sovereign, but aim to test every date mintmark design combination.

I have tested 21st century sovereign plenty of times, and found no under-carat ones, but have not always recorded the results.

Included in today's tests was an 1887-L British Gold Sovereign Queen Victoria Jubilee Head London Mint. Although this was not the same coin I tested, I posted the results here:

It is quite easy to pick these out of a large batch because they are distinctly more yellow, to make them look even nicer than usual for Victoria's Golden Jubilee year.

 

I wonder if you know, is this just the case for the 1887 full sovereign or the 1887 half sovereign too?

[LawrenceChard]

44 minutes ago, Foster88 said:

I wonder if you know, is this just the case for the 1887 full sovereign or the 1887 half sovereign too?

Good question.

I probably have tested some in the past, but have not recorded the data. They do look more yellow like the sovereigns, so their alloy is probably similar.

I will be testing some. It is highly probably that the double and quintuple sovereigns also had a higher silver content. I have tested a number of them, so will take a look on Flickr, where I have recorded much of this data.

I intend to ramp up the testing. Our Niton machine does have an interface for transfer data to a PC, although we have not yet used it. If we can transfer the data to a database, we should be able to speed up the process.

The accuracy improves with testing time. I think most testers set their default testing time to 30 seconds or less, we have ours set to 60 seconds. Testing one coin on both sides therefore takes about 3 minutes with swapping time, so one person working flat out can test about 20 per hour, then the data currently needs to be manually transferred. Semi-automation should improve this, and reduce human error.

Watch this space!

 

[LawrenceChard]

55 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Good question.

Watch this space!

I just found this 1887 gold £2:

...and it has high silver content, also high gold, low copper.

Alloy Analysis
I used our new Niton tester <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/68432253@N04/10346473953/in/photolist-gLhoeX-gJQFMy">Niton tester</a> on this coin, and got these results:
Obverse
Gold 930 (+-3)
Copper 56 (+-1)
Silver 13 (+-1)

Reverse
Gold 928 (+-4)
Copper 59 (+-1)
Silver 13 (+-1)

All shown as parts per thousand. The figures in brackets are tolerances.
I have not not had time to compare it with the 1887-L JH sovereign.

 

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

Good question.

Watch this space!

 

Also found:

1887 Gold £5 Five Pound Victoria Jubilee Head St George and Dragon 

Alloy Analysis
I used our Niton tester <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/68432253@N04/10346473953/">Niton tester</a> on this coin, and got these results:
Obverse
Gold 941 (+-4)
Copper 46 (+-1)
Silver 13 (+-1)

Reverse
Gold 944 (+-5)
Copper 43 (+-1)
Silver 13 (+-1)

All shown as parts per thousand. The figures in brackets are tolerances.

The high gold content of this coin surprised me, I would have expected a result of 916 or 917, allowing for the tolerance.
If I was doing this test result without prior close examination or knowledge, I would have classed this coin as highly suspect, a likely fake, because the gold fineness is too high for a 22 gold carat coin. There is no other "bad" evidence, and as the Royal Mint report concludes that it is a genuine coin, then I am happy to agree with the conclusion.

I now intend to Niton test a further number of similar 1887 quintuple sovereigns, with particular attention to the gold fineness.

This is one of a number of coins we submitted to the Royal Mint Museum (Royal Mint Historical Services), for a second opinion.

Used in video comparison.
Also compared here:
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lawrence_chard/46018286745/">1887 Gold £5 Five Pounds Quintuple Sovereign Victoria Jubilee Head St George and Dragon Comparison of Genuine and Fake - Obverse and Reverse</a>

 

Again, high gold, high silver, low copper.

 

[sovereignsteve]

I was about to ask were you sure the £2 and £5 were genuine😉

[LawrenceChard]

21 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

I was about to ask were you sure the £2 and £5 were genuine😉

Yes, and the Royal Mint agreed with us.

[LawrenceChard]

On 01/05/2020 at 19:47, LawrenceChard said:

I have been doing more sovereign testing today, using our Niton tester. Despite starting the project a few years ago, I have still not tested every date of sovereign, but aim to test every date mintmark design combination.

I have tested 21st century sovereign plenty of times, and found no under-carat ones, but have not always recorded the results.

Included in today's tests was an 1887-L British Gold Sovereign Queen Victoria Jubilee Head London Mint. Although this was not the same coin I tested, I posted the results here:

It is quite easy to pick these out of a large batch because they are distinctly more yellow, to make them look even nicer than usual for Victoria's Golden Jubilee year.

 

Just added results for an 1888-S British Gold Sovereign Victoria Jubilee Head Sydney Mint Australia

Only 2 ppt of silver!

Anyone good at arithmetic? - Spot what looks like an error! (in the test results, not on the coin).

[Booky586]

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

Anyone good at arithmetic? - Spot what looks like an error! (in the test results, not on the coin).

Quote

 

Alloy Analysis

I used our Niton tester Niton tester on a similar coin, and got these results:

Obverse

Gold 919 (+-4)

Copper 80 (+-1)

Silver 2 (+-0)

 

Reverse

Gold 917 (+-3)

Copper 80 (+-1)

Silver 2 (+-0)

 

All shown as parts per thousand. The figures in brackets are tolerances.

You've got 1001 parts on the obverse and 999 parts on the reverse. Perhaps it's just more worn on the reverse 🤪

P.S. Your coin photos are excellent, do you you an axial lighting technique?

[LawrenceChard]

2 hours ago, Booky586 said:

You've got 1001 parts on the obverse and 999 parts on the reverse. Perhaps it's just more worn on the reverse 🤪

P.S. Your coin photos are excellent, do you you an axial lighting technique?

Well done!

Nothing to do with wear, just "rounding".

If the obverse readings were to 4 places, they might be:

4 Places       Rounded

918.6	919
79.7	80
1.7	2
1000	1001

and similar for the reverse, but "in reverse".

We do use axial lighting, but not on the above coin, which would have probably been "heavy breathing", or just natural, wish ringflash.

Axial Lighting:

 

 

[Guest]

23 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

Also found:

1887 Gold £5 Five Pound Victoria Jubilee Head St George and Dragon 

Alloy Analysis
I used our Niton tester <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/68432253@N04/10346473953/">Niton tester</a> on this coin, and got these results:
Obverse
Gold 941 (+-4)
Copper 46 (+-1)
Silver 13 (+-1)

Reverse
Gold 944 (+-5)
Copper 43 (+-1)
Silver 13 (+-1)

All shown as parts per thousand. The figures in brackets are tolerances.

The high gold content of this coin surprised me, I would have expected a result of 916 or 917, allowing for the tolerance.
If I was doing this test result without prior close examination or knowledge, I would have classed this coin as highly suspect, a likely fake, because the gold fineness is too high for a 22 gold carat coin. There is no other "bad" evidence, and as the Royal Mint report concludes that it is a genuine coin, then I am happy to agree with the conclusion.

I now intend to Niton test a further number of similar 1887 quintuple sovereigns, with particular attention to the gold fineness.

This is one of a number of coins we submitted to the Royal Mint Museum (Royal Mint Historical Services), for a second opinion.

Used in video comparison.
Also compared here:
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lawrence_chard/46018286745/">1887 Gold £5 Five Pounds Quintuple Sovereign Victoria Jubilee Head St George and Dragon Comparison of Genuine and Fake - Obverse and Reverse</a>

 

Again, high gold, high silver, low copper.

 

Oooooo that Niton DXL tester 😍 so small but so handy to have! Makes the XRF in my old lab look old and obsolete - which it was to be honest ; wish I had one of these instead 😅