Is it usual to refuse other Gold than 24 Carat as a Newbie?

[SidS]

I can't comment on the decimal era, but the few Gillick coins I've seen in the flesh seem more like the earlier issues and more yellow.

[LawrenceChard]

34 minutes ago, rdhcustance said:

Entirely agree about the newer sovereigns. I bought two of the 2020 ones and do not like the rosy hue. But I am a bit puzzled by the 'about 2000' date for the start of this unwholesome practice. I had understood that it goes back to the very first Elizabeth II sovereigns. I am looking at one from 1980 and can't make out from the photo whether the alloy is  100% copper or not. Would I be safe in buying it and finding on inspection that it is not like the 2020 ones that I hold, which is what I would like to be the case. Or is it really a 'copper' one that has been well disguised in the photo? Many thanks for expert guidance on this question.

The word "about" is important.

I have done considerable research on the alloy content of British gold sovereigns, and also other coins including other precious metals, and base metals. This includes a few hundred gold sovereigns.

We published a brief glimpse into this here: 

https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/analysis-of-alloy-content-of-gold-sovereigns/180

Although we have limited the results table to a small selection (14) sovereigns dating from 1817 to 2021.

This sample size is too small to be considered as definitive or reliable. It dies not include the information I gave in this thread, that a typical silver content is about 3ppt. In addition, I have not yet tested a sufficient number of QEII sovereigns to enable me to draw absolute conclusions. As you can see from the table, two of the QEII sovereigns showed as having 1ppt of silver. 

I intend to carry out extensive further research into alloy contents of British gold coins, sovereign in particular, but this is a time consuming process, and one which we need to automate to be able to do it efficiently. The automation would help in recording, storing, analysing, retrieving, and publishing the results.

I am aware that many others, including dealers, will have tested for the gold content of sovereign, this is mainly in an attempt to detect counterfeits. While XRF testing has a place in this, it is quite limited, and will always fail to detect fake sovereigns which happen to have the correct gold content.

Our testing is not just aimed at checking and recording the gold content, but also in ascertaining the proportion of other metals present. 

I can't really help you much with the 1980, apart from suggesting you look at the small sample results we published, and my comments above.

[RDHC]

21 minutes ago, SidS said:

I can't comment on the decimal era, but the few Gillick coins I've seen in the flesh seem more like the earlier issues and more yellow.

Thank you.

[RDHC]

3 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

The word "about" is important.

I have done considerable research on the alloy content of British gold sovereigns, and also other coins including other precious metals, and base metals. This includes a few hundred gold sovereigns.

We published a brief glimpse into this here: 

https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/analysis-of-alloy-content-of-gold-sovereigns/180

Although we have limited the results table to a small selection (14) sovereigns dating from 1817 to 2021.

This sample size is too small to be considered as definitive or reliable. It dies not include the information I gave in this thread, that a typical silver content is about 3ppt. In addition, I have not yet tested a sufficient number of QEII sovereigns to enable me to draw absolute conclusions. As you can see from the table, two of the QEII sovereigns showed as having 1ppt of silver. 

I intend to carry out extensive further research into alloy contents of British gold coins, sovereign in particular, but this is a time consuming process, and one which we need to automate to be able to do it efficiently. The automation would help in recording, storing, analysing, retrieving, and publishing the results.

I am aware that many others, including dealers, will have tested for the gold content of sovereign, this is mainly in an attempt to detect counterfeits. While XRF testing has a place in this, it is quite limited, and will always fail to detect fake sovereigns which happen to have the correct gold content.

Our testing is not just aimed at checking and recording the gold content, but also in ascertaining the proportion of other metals present. 

I can't really help you much with the 1980, apart from suggesting you look at the small sample results we published, and my comments above.

That is very helpful, thank you. I think I may pass on the 1980 one: the odds do not look good. It really is too bad of the Mint. Have to go back to the young head, reverse shield ones, with their premium.

[LawrenceChard]

3 hours ago, SidS said:

Yeah white gold, I don't get that either. I'd rather have silver... the real deal rather than the substitute! 😁

Of course, there is no such thing as white gold, just alloys of gold which are done as a cheap imitation of platinum, and usually has to be rhodium plated.

This is an article I wrote in about 1998/9:

https://24carat.co.uk/frame.php?url=whatiswhitegold.html

You might enjoy the story I told at the end of the page. 🙂

 

[RacerCool]

I'm the opposite in that I much prefer gov't minted gold coins. They're already "money" or were already used as money and in recognized and understood denominations. And they're more durable and easily stackable.

My preferred gold are older Mexican and US coins in the 5 peso and 5 dollar variety, and they're all .900 gold. I think only one of my gold coins is 24k and it's a commemorative US Mint issue. I don't have any bars or tokens, only coins.

[Foster88]

On 17/08/2021 at 11:52, rdhcustance said:

That is very helpful, thank you. I think I may pass on the 1980 one: the odds do not look good. It really is too bad of the Mint. Have to go back to the young head, reverse shield ones, with their premium.

I don’t think you would have a problem with a 1980 sovereign looking like the ‘copper’ colour of modern sovereigns.

When I say modern I mean the dates already mentioned (2000 ish - present). I don’t know what the ratio to gold-copper-silver was then but all of the early 1980’s sovereigns I’ve seen don’t have that copper tone.

I have a 1979 and that is certainly more of a ‘yellow’ gold tone.

[B33TR00T]

On 15/08/2021 at 10:58, LawrenceChard said:

I've got some bad news for you...

If the gold sovereigns in your stash are all penny sized, you should take another close look at them! 🙂

😁 you know what he means Mr Chard.

Not every airport security Andy has been spending every day looking at sovereigns for 200 years like you have!

Edited August 18, 2021 by B33TR00T

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, B33TR00T said:

😁 you know what he means Mr Chard.

Not every airport security Andy has been spending every day looking at sovereigns for 200 years like you have!

Of course I knew what he meant, just sharing a little fun.

[SilverStorm]

On 14/08/2021 at 14:16, Epictetus said:

It happens to my that all the gold I buy has to be 24 Carat; yellow and shiny. 
I would love to get sovereigns but I don’t like the fact that they are brown and they are not pure gold. 

I'm like you, my first preference would be to buy 24 carat gold.  But as others have mentioned, 22 carat is also good to buy and is more resistant to damage than pure gold.   It all boils down to preference.  Since I live in Canada, my go to gold coin is the 1 oz Canadian gold maple.  

[Coolsmp]

You don't need to choose between 24ct and 22ct just have both!

[LawrenceChard]

On 19/08/2021 at 07:34, Coolsmp said:

You don't need to choose between 24ct and 22ct just have both!

You could go for 23ct, which is what a lot of older gold coins were made of.

Think hammered coins!

Almost anything from times before gold coins circulated in everyday use, and were mainly used as a store of wealth, and the plebeians only used silver and copper.

[danmc82]

10 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

You could go for 23ct, which is what a lot of older gold coins were made of.

Just had a look at some 23ct Gold Coins. Mainly the Ducat. Am I right in saying these coins were 23ct because they didnt have the means to refine Gold to 24ct?

[KevinFlynn]

1 hour ago, danmc82 said:

Just had a look at some 23ct Gold Coins. Mainly the Ducat. Am I right in saying these coins were 23ct because they didnt have the means to refine Gold to 24ct?

They are not 24 carat as most of these coins were meant to be used and pure gold would have been too soft for that.

A little alloying means it is much more robust to daily wear and tear.

[SidS]

Medieval gold coins were usually somewhere between 23ct and 23 2/3ct, although it does vary. I have a book somewhere, where there's a table of average fineness of European medieval coins. Some were pretty close to 24ct to be fair.

 

[danmc82]

On 05/11/2021 at 11:20, KevinFlynn said:

They are not 24 carat as most of these coins were meant to be used and pure gold would have been too soft for that.

A little alloying means it is much more robust to daily wear and tear.

I understand that but what I was getting at is maybe at the time they didnt have the means to produce 24ct Gold, so left it as is at 23ct.

 

 

[LawrenceChard]

On 14/08/2021 at 22:16, Epictetus said:

It happens to my that all the gold I buy has to be 24 Carat; yellow and shiny. 
I would love to get sovereigns but I don’t like the fact that they are brown and they are not pure gold. 

I may have mentioned this earlier, but only the recent ones are red / brown and look like copper, because they contain no silver.

I published this draft blog yesterday:

 

[LawrenceChard]

On 05/11/2021 at 09:33, danmc82 said:

Just had a look at some 23ct Gold Coins. Mainly the Ducat. Am I right in saying these coins were 23ct because they didnt have the means to refine Gold to 24ct?

I think they could get close to 24ct, but it would probably have increased refining costs, and fine gold would not wear well in circulation.

[scotwasp]

I would like to thank Mr Chard for the education we newbies get from reading posts like the above, what would take hours/days of research, condensed into a quick read,  brilliant stuff 👍👍👍

[Spark268]

On 14/08/2021 at 22:16, Epictetus said:

It happens to my that all the gold I buy has to be 24 Carat; yellow and shiny. 
I would love to get sovereigns but I don’t like the fact that they are brown and they are not pure gold. 

you might have a bit of a problem if carry those with regular change - over years it will flake away. There's a reason why most circulatable coins are 22 carat....