Wha would you do?

[Seth]

The place I buy most of my gold from is currently out of stock of all of the gold coins that I normally buy, since I moved to the U.K. in 2015 this has been mainly Britannias as well as whatever 24 carat/9999 gold bullion coin produced by the Royal Mint.  Now he offered me what seems to be an ineresting deal as an alternative to waiting until he get the sort of gold coins that I would usually purchase back in stock, his offer is as follows,:

£340.00 per sovereign for any of the fifth portrait of Queen Elizabeth II year sovereigns - obviously there is a minimum purchase amount, and if I want a proof version of any of them they will be an extra £390 each.

Should I just hold off buying gold until he gets my regular choices back in stock?

Now from my understanding the sovereign years he is offering me are 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. Is that correct?

If I take him up on this deal should I just get an even selection from each year, or should I get just one or more years, is there any spacial variation released between 2015 and 2020 that I should specifically ask for?

What would you guys suggest, as somebody who has no interest in sovereigns - in fact these will be the first sovereigns I have purchased if I take him up on his offer, I'm leaning towards buying an even number of sovereigns from eact year 2015 to 2020, as well as perhaps a proof version of each year.  What would you guys do?

I should pont out that I don't care about spot price, this is for long term investment/retention of wealth to be realised by my children or theirs, I'm thinking in terms of generations not decades with my precious metals purchases.

[sovereignsteve]

Buy all 2017 bullion sovs and don't buy any proofs at those prices except maybe 2016 and 2017 if you must get some.

[Notafront4adragon]

2017 has a privy mark on bullion version so may add value over other years, I wonder if 2020 will end up being an interesting year to collectors in the future. Sovereigns are just as good as the 24ct gold coins in my opinion. 

The proof 2017 is the special one and £740 is a decent price compared to other sellers, still not sure it's a good investment, but it's far too much for any other year. The 2016 proof is also a different design, it's the ugly head don't think 740 would be a good price. I definitely wouldn't buy proofs from each year, just 2017. 

 

[richatthecroft]

56 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

Buy all 2017 bullion sovs and don't buy any proofs at those prices except maybe 2016 and 2017 if you must get some.

Hi Steve,

Just wondering if you have any updated mintage info on the 2017 Bu? 

I can see the merit in buying up all the 2017’s due to the privy and therefore, perceived and/or real ‘rarity’ however, I don’t think so far the RM have documented the mintage of this year date? 
Whereas, the 2015 & 2016 Sovereign Bu mintages  have been declared.  According to the 5th edition of Spink, they cite mintages of the 2015 Bu issue as 10,000 & 2016 Bu as a tiny 1500.  
Given the tiny mintage of the 2016 Bu, isn’t this the Sovereign to hoover up as opposed to the 2017 Bu? 

My observation anecdotally, is the 2017 Bu’s come around frequently as opposed to the infrequent 2016. Even the 2015 is a Very low mintage compared to say 2010 Bu & 2011 Bu issues which were 250,000 each year, again this according to Spink. 

[richatthecroft]

Sorry @sovereignsteve, I’ve thrown you this hand-grenade and I’ll have to disappear awhile to join my wife’s birthday festivities! I’ll be back later though 😀 

[dicker]

19 minutes ago, richatthecroft said:

My observation anecdotally, is the 2017 Bu’s come around frequently as opposed to the infrequent 2016. Even the 2015 is a Very low mintage compared to say 2010 Bu & 2011 Bu issues which were 250,000 each year, again this according to Spink. 

Agreed about the 2017 BU's - I have seen more in the wild than others.  

Could be my confirmation bias of course

[shawy2510]

Don't buy any of the proofs they are a rip off. I have sold 2017 Proofs at £680, 2018 at £430 & 2019 at £430. 

[sovereignsteve]

You may well be right about the mintages of those years and I could just be being a bit blinkered in my loathing of these modern bullion sovs. I doubt that people will be collecting these rarer years in the future but I could always be wrong of course. I know if I were in that position in how ever  many years, I still wouldn't go near them from a collecting POV.

[Roy]

45 minutes ago, shawy2510 said:

Don't buy any of the proofs they are a rip off. I have sold 2017 Proofs at £680, 2018 at £430 & 2019 at £430. 

And a graded 2018 @ £390 😄

[sovereignsteve]

4 hours ago, richatthecroft said:

2016 Bu as a tiny 1500.  

I can't believe this. Do they mean strictly BU or bullion?

maybe @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer could tell us how many they sold that year?

[richatthecroft]

16 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

I can't believe this. Do they mean strictly BU or bullion?

maybe @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer could tell us how many they sold that year?

Me neither- but Here’s the Spink reference on the 2015’s,  2016’s and no figures for the 2017 Bu...

 

 

 

[sovereignsteve]

I suspect there has been a lot of confusion generated by the mint's production of 3 strikes of sovereign in recent years.

Why would the bullion strike be limited to just 1500? Strikes me it will probably be the middle type, BU, not the bullion which is usually unlimited.

I think this is how false mintage figures get picked up by Marsh etc.

Personally I can't remember there being few so bullion strike sovereigns on sale in 2016. I can't think of a reason why that would be the case.

[jultorsk]

Implausible bullion mintages would be that low I suppose, although it is a heresy to suspect Spink has a mistake in it. 🤔 Here's what I've gathered from various sources so far. Happy to stand corrected 😊

 

 

[HawkHybrid]

2 hours ago, richatthecroft said:

Me neither- but Here’s the Spink reference on the 2015’s,  2016’s and no figures for the 2017 Bu...

 

 

 

 

on the page you can see that spinks makes a distinction between BU(eg 2016 BU) and

bullion(eg 2017 200th anniversary bullion).

 

HH

[ChardsCoinandBullionDealer]

On 26/06/2020 at 17:31, sovereignsteve said:

I can't believe this. Do they mean strictly BU or bullion?

maybe @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer could tell us how many they sold that year?

The mint are usually slow at releasing their bullion sovereign mintage figures - or any bullion coin figures for that matter! We definitely sold over 1,500 of the 2016 bullion sovs. 

The BU coins Spink refers to are usually the ones which come in a card or presentation box. They're supposed to be better quality than the bullion coins, but not as good as the proofs. 

Amy

[Stuntman]

The mintages of bullion sovereigns are almost certainly over 100,000 in all recent years (2012 onwards).

Here are the mintages of bullion sovereigns from 2000 to 2015.  I think this came from a FOI request, before the Royal Mint stopped providing this information to the general public (as it damn well should do).

2000	129,069
2001	49,462
2002	75,264
2003	43,230
2004	30,688
2005	45,542
2006	33,012
2007	27,628
2008	58,894
2009	60,292
2010	243,158
2011	253,773
2012	432,925
2013	261,581
2014	261,216
2015	113,177

[Stuntman]

In answer to the original question - I agree about the 2017 sovereigns as being the best choice.  Personally I would like a 2015 and 2016 because I don't have either year.  So please buy some of those and then sell me one of each, for a premium of £1 per coin over your buying price 😄😄