Red v Yellow Colour Gold Sovereigns - Silver v Copper Alloy Content

[HerefordBullyun]

2 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

I realised you were not the source of the hypotheses.

I am happy for people to use our images for educational use, with a credit to the source.

Is that red source on the  blackpool chards fish n chips?

Edited October 22, 2021 by HerefordBullyun

[Arganto]

16 minutes ago, HerefordBullyun said:

Is that red source on the  blackpool chards fish n chips?

😲 If you get it from the right place you shouldn't need tomato jam! Just a liberal shake of the S&V, and make sure it's proper distilled malt and not watered down 😋

[Arganto]

Has anyone tried "antiquing" a modern sovereign? I don't like antique as a verb but it's modern parlance for "scrub the bugger till it looks old" I think.

[sovereignsteve]

3 hours ago, Liam84 said:

I believe some have hypothesised that the Royal Mint use some kind of finishing/lamination/coating on modern sovereigns that influences the final colour

I find it hard to believe they introduce a laminate of any kind. This suggests a coating of some sort that would surely show up upon analysis/inspection. It would have an effect on total weight as well, albeit minutely.

Having said that, I would love to know how, and why ffs, they produce that shiny surface, it's awful. It must be deliberate and more to the point, as an "extra" process or procedure, must surely cost extra in terms of materials, time or labour. It doesn't sound like the RM to waste money.

Oh why don't they just strike their modern sovereigns just like the Gillicks?🙄

[dicker]

7 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

I find it hard to believe they introduce a laminate of any kind. This suggests a coating of some sort that would surely show up upon analysis/inspection. It would have an effect on total weight as well, albeit minutely.

Having said that, I would love to know how, and why ffs, they produce that shiny surface, it's awful. It must be deliberate and more to the point, as an "extra" process or procedure, must surely cost extra in terms of materials, time or labour. It doesn't sound like the RM to waste money.

Oh why don't they just strike their modern sovereigns just like the Gillicks?🙄

I could not agree more.  The Gillick Sovereign is a very “honest” coin with a great strike.

The RM lost their way with the bullion sovereign from Y2K until now as far as I am concerned.  

Best

Dicker

[LawrenceChard]

3 hours ago, HerefordBullyun said:

Is that red source on the  blackpool chards fish n chips?

 

2 hours ago, Liam84 said:

😲 If you get it from the right place you shouldn't need tomato jam! Just a liberal shake of the S&V, and make sure it's proper distilled malt and not watered down 😋

When I saw "sauce", I worried that I had typed sauce instead of source by mistake.

I agree that good fish, or most other food, should not need ketchup. 

I don't even use vinegar, and most of us get too much salt in our diet.

Perhaps down south, where cod is the default, it needs something to give it some flavour, but "up north", where haddock is the default, then we don't need as much enhancement.

Talking about the confusion in some people's minds, between source and sauce, reminds me of an image we created some time ago, but had not got around to using:

There is little point me naming the person here, but someone said "you haven't been able to sauce them".

We created this and a few other images at the time, but thought it better not to alienate the guy further.

 

Edited October 22, 2021 by LawrenceChard

[RDHC]

4 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

 

 

@RDHC If you "tag" someone (@ followed by their username) TSF alerts them, rather than just name then without the tag, then you are more likely to get a response. I only saw this because @Liam84 tagged me in.

I don't know why you think those Scandinavian coins are 90% gold, 10% copper, and I strongly suspect they contain at least some traces of silver.

Colour of gold alloys does not depend primarly on the proportion of gold, but more on the precise mixture of other constituents, and the presence or absence of some.

Neither is it like adding yellow and blue pigment to get green. The colour of light we see reflected off objects depends on the surface layer of the object, and in particular the arrangement of crystalline pattern or lattice. Assuming white light (full spectrum) falls on the object, some wavelengths of light are absorbed, other reflected. To understand this, you may need to try to imagine balls or other shapes of different sizes, and see how well or badly they would fit together. As an example, here is a Public Domain image from Wikipedia:

It represent sodium chloride, common salt. Coincidentally it is shown using @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer house colours.

Also alloyed gold coins will tone slightly with age.

Mint Lustre is a well known quality of most coins. When coins are struck, the blanks go through a rather violent process under great pressure, causing them to partially melt or soften. Some of this metal then flows into the incuse areas of the dies, while some is restrained by the raised areas or the dies. This all happens within a fraction of a second, before cooling. Understandably, this affects the texture of the surfaces, producing mint lustre. the surface finish of the dies will also have an effect, depending whether they are highly polished, or different degrees of matt finish. Die wear and the finish on the blanks or planchets will also have an effect.

Yes, copper is copper, but it is unlikely that mints use highly refined copper with all impurities removed. Most metallic elements are not mined in their pure state, but in mixtures with other metals, and usually as "salts". Copper, silver and gold are often products and by-products of each other, so that "copper" may contain some impurities or traces of silver or other metals. Most refining is aimed at removing undesirable elements such as lead. If the amount of silver in partially refined copper is not high enough to warrant separation, most refiners will leave it alone. Similarly, silver is commonly found in close association with gold in their ores, and again, there is little point in refining gold to remove all traces of silver if it going to be alloyed. Exceptions would include any metals required to be ultra-pure for scientific purposes, but such refining would be expensive, uneconomic and impractical.

While I had possibly not noticed, or forgotten, about KUPARIA on Finnish coins, I also doubt whether this is accurate, for reasons similar to those above. From memory, I think they are a pleasant colour rather than rotten red.

Any hypothesis that the Royal Mint use some kind of finishing/lamination/coating on modern sovereigns is probably due to lack or understanding or a highly active imagination (caused by some stimulant?). Unless they have found some cunning way to gold plate copper yet make it undetectable. (Now there's a great idea for conspiracy theorists). 😎

It is good practice to show credits for sources, especially photos. While I do not know where Liam's first two images came from, the third one, the 2015 gold sovereign, is such a high quality photo that it could only have come from https://www.chards.co.uk/2015-gold-sovereign-elizabeth-ii-unc-london/319, but on checking, it appears to be from elsewhere.

We do have some Danish gold coins in stock, so I will test one later. Meanwhile we will continue looking for the other countries.

 

 

Thank you very much for your usual long and helpful exposition. I look forward to your test analysis of a Danish 20 kroner in due course. Re. impurities, I entirely take your point. Indeed, I wonder if a minute touch of iron (plentiful in Scandanavia) might be present and give a darker hue to these coins?

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, RDHC said:

Thank you very much for your usual long and helpful exposition. I look forward to your test analysis of a Danish 20 kroner in due course. Re. impurities, I entirely take your point. Indeed, I wonder if a minute touch of iron (plentiful in Scandanavia) might be present and give a darker hue to these coins?

How about this:

1873 Denmark Gold 20 Kronor

Taking just the obverse reading:

Gold 901 ppt +-3

Copper 90 ppt +-1

Silver 8 ppt +-0

Iron 1 ppt +-0

The trace of iron, which was not detected on the reverse reading was a slight but not astonishing surprise. I do see traces of iron and other impurities quite often. I have never been able to detect any ferromagnetism using a neodymium magnet, although this does not surprise me. I have never noticed any detectable effect on the colour either.

While I was doing some testing, I also did:

1914 Denmark Gold 20 Kronor

The slightly lower silver reading was not entirely unexpected:

Gold 901 ppt +-3

Copper 95 ppt +-1

Silver 3 ppt +-0

I am aware the total is not 100%, as machine rounds to 3 places.

Knowing some Scandinavians can be touchy, I also tested a Swedish 20 Kronor, which almost fooled me into calling it Norwegian:

Gold 902 ppt +-1

Copper 96 ppt +-1

Silver 2 ppt +-0

I probably would have guessed at around 3 to 4 ppt of silver, but the actual reading is entirely within an expected range.

[RDHC]

13 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

How about this:

1873 Denmark Gold 20 Kronor

Taking just the obverse reading:

Gold 901 ppt +-3

Copper 90 ppt +-1

Silver 8 ppt +-0

Iron 1 ppt +-0

The trace of iron, which was not detected on the reverse reading was a slight but not astonishing surprise. I do see traces of iron and other impurities quite often. I have never been able to detect any ferromagnetism using a neodymium magnet, although this does not surprise me. I have never noticed any detectable effect on the colour either.

While I was doing some testing, I also did:

1914 Denmark Gold 20 Kronor

The slightly lower silver reading was not entirely unexpected:

Gold 901 ppt +-3

Copper 95 ppt +-1

Silver 3 ppt +-0

I am aware the total is not 100%, as machine rounds to 3 places.

Knowing some Scandinavians can be touchy, I also tested a Swedish 20 Kronor, which almost fooled me into calling it Norwegian:

Gold 902 ppt +-1

Copper 96 ppt +-1

Silver 2 ppt +-0

I probably would have guessed at around 3 to 4 ppt of silver, but the actual reading is entirely within an expected range.

Fascinating and very enlightening results. They look conclusive to me. Thank you very much, Lawrence. That really does show what the Mint ought to be doing with our sovereigns.

Roger

[LawrenceChard]

6 hours ago, RDHC said:

Fascinating and very enlightening results. They look conclusive to me. Thank you very much, Lawrence. That really does show what the Mint ought to be doing with our sovereigns.

Roger

Thanks.

I did write to the Mint about a month ago, then chased them after 3 weeks, I have had a response, and will report on it soon in this topic thread.

[LawrenceChard]

On 09/10/2021 at 22:14, LawrenceChard said:

It is almost universally agreed that gold sovereigns, together with multiples and fractions would look better yellow by adding some silver to the alloy, rather than the modern coppery red colour created by using only copper in the alloy, and no silver.

I have frequently commented on it, and produced XRF alloy analysis as evidence that there was always silver in older sovereigns, and that the absence of silver, producing red gold coins is a recent (since about 1957) aberration.

There are many threads on TSF which mention this, and also infomation and blog pages on the Chards website.

On Thursday 23rd September, I wrote an e-mail to Anne Jessop and two other members of the Royal Mint management team, stating the case for adding silver, and doing so as early as in the anticipated 2022 Royal Coat of Arms sovereigns.

I was pleasantly surprised to get a response as early as the next day, but it was only from one of the recipients letting me know they had forwarded it to a more appropriate member of their team. Following that, I had been expecting a substantive response shortly afterwards, even if it was to say "no", or "thanks". It has been almost three weeks now, and a thought just occurred to me, that the delay and absence of response may just be because I have hit a proverbial nail on the head, and that they are about to issue yellow gold sovereigns with some silver content, in which case, they would not wish to pre-empt their embargo or announcement. Or perhaps they are mulling over my suggestion...

Any bets?

 

On 10/10/2021 at 01:54, Foster88 said:

@LawrenceChard I admire you for taking both the time and trouble to raise this with RM. However, as you have said in your previous posts, for them to change the composition of the sovereign now would be to admit they made a mistake.

Like many here, I prefer the true gold look of my older sovereigns.

Maybe a leopard will change its spots or maybe the RM will change the composition of the sovereign with the change of monarch.

I hope they’ve taken your advice on board, I’d love to see the 2022 sovereign in its true gold colour (alloyed with silver).

Maybe, if many don’t like the colour of the 2022 sovereign but will still buy it, they’ll be thinking like  D i c k Emery when they see it...

”Oh you are awful, but I like you.” 😂

(Now he’s wayyyy before my time)

 

On 10/10/2021 at 02:31, Happypanda88 said:

I bet No !  It won't happen. Silver won't be used.

Reason:

Current Spot price of Silver vs Copper (per kg)

Silver 728USD Vs Copper 9.39USD 

So silver is currently over 77 times more expensive than copper.

Given that most organisations are run by "Bean Counters", a simple economics dictates that silver won't be used as it affects their bottom line.

Having said that, I would be happy to be proven wrong by RM. But then again, I'm not holding my breath!  😊

 

On 10/10/2021 at 07:06, Jvw said:

I hope you are right!

But no bet. I have seen the Royal Mints past couple years tactics of selling as much gold and silver possible for the cheapest possible way. I wouldn't be surprised if they have investigated the option adding Rice Krispies and Play-Doh to the alloy to lower production-cost. 

2022 Sovereign would be yellow/blue/green/red-ish if it would mean lower production costs and more profit....

 

On 10/10/2021 at 07:16, dicker said:

Agree completely @LawrenceChard.  I genuinely think the Bullion Sovereign would be purchased by more people if it was gold in colour and had a better strike.  
 

Best

Dicker

 

On 10/10/2021 at 09:30, MickB said:

The Royal Mint could possibly make them with silver for proof coins only. Bullion just being bullion could then stay the same.

 

On 10/10/2021 at 09:40, TheShinyStuff said:

On a macro level, this makes perfect sense. However on a silver per sovereign level, the price could be easily absorbed. I haven't done the sums, but if it wouldn't amount to more than a penny or two per coin. An extra fiver per sovereign would represent even more healthy profit for the RM and I expect we would all happily pay it. 

You could argue that RM has been missing a trick. @LawrenceChard could be on to something...

 

On 10/10/2021 at 09:57, Thelonerangershorse said:

At the risk of being completly banned from the Forum, can I just say, I happen to like the current colour.

 

On 10/10/2021 at 16:47, Happypanda88 said:

The figure I have is an extra 35 pence per sovereign at today's spot price.

My calculation is based on weight of a sovereign at 7.98g, with pure gold content of 7.32g which gives the remaining 0.66g as other metal(s). 

Assuming that 0.66g of silver is used for new sovereigns, then that's around 35 pence at today's spot price of silver.

The extra cost and amount of silver used per coin may not sound a lot.  But a mintage of 500,000 sovereigns (including halves, 2 pounds and 5 pounds) would mean an extra 300kg of silver. (The most recent sovereign mintage figures are not available so I'm plucking a figure based on a popular year i.e. 2012 which had a mintage exceeding half a million).

I think the RM management would rather used those extra kilos of silver for special editions / proofs where they can yield upto 7-9 times the value instead of charging a couple of quid extra per sovereign. 

At the end of the day, RM is a business so I wouldn't blame them for wanting to maximise their profits. Besides, have we not seen them cut corners on quality control of bullion coins lately !   LOL  !!! 😁

Afterall, there aren't a limitless supply of silver above or below ground which is why I believe RM won't be using silver for sovereigns.

 

 

On 10/10/2021 at 17:58, Booky586 said:

You don't have to put .66g of silver into a sovereign to get a nice yellow gold, it can be much less. Take a look at the yellow gold £5 coin and it's alloy composition in the link:

There's only 1.2% (12ppt) silver in this alloy, so a similar composition for a sovereign is 7.98g x 0.012 = 0.096g of silver. That's about 5p worth of silver per sovereign, the rest of the non gold content can be made up with copper. And you don't have to use so much silver:

 

 

On 10/10/2021 at 19:04, LawrenceChard said:

Thank you for spotting my maths error. I was being lazy, and didn't check it, probably because my maths is usually good.

Re-working it, I more or less agree with you, and get 36 pence per coin for 17 ppt silver, therefore about 7 pence for 3-4 ppt silver.

The weight of a gold sovereign is closer to 7.99 than 7.98 (don't rely on Royal Mint information).

Even at these corrected figures. it should still be well worth the Mint adding some silver.

Perth Mint use 17 ppt silver in their sovereigns, but the (mode) average figure for older (pre QEII) British sovereigns is about 3 to 4 parts per thousand, so I would suggest:

Use 17 ppt silver for the proofs, and 3-4 ppt for the bullion coins.

The amount of silver above ground would be more than sufficient to deal with this very slight increase. I don't believe most of the silver shortage hype and propaganda.

 

 

On 10/10/2021 at 20:45, LawrenceChard said:

OK, I'd better start again, third time lucky?:

Sovereign gross weight approx 7.99 grams (7.98805182664527 to be precise, not 7.98 which the RM quotes)

22ct = 22/24 gold, therefore balance = 2/24 = 1/12 = 0.66583333 grams.

Spot silver = £0.5342 per gram

0.66583333 x £0.5342 = 0.35568816

The above assumes 91.66% gold 8.34% silver.

(For some reason, I have been quoting 17 ppt silver/copper, and where I got that from I don't know!)

I have ignored copper value and cost thoughout, as I think it is insignificant. If I am wrong, then anyone is welcome to further correct me.

But for 3 to 4 parts per thousand silver (0.3% to 0.4%) , the silver cost works out about 1.5 to 2 pence per coin. This proportion of silver is enough to give a pleasant yellow colour rather than the modern 8.34% copper givng a red colour.

For the bullion version, 3 to 4 ppt of silver would be more than good enough.

The 1887-L London Mint Victoria Jubilee sovereigns contained about 12 ppt (1.2%) of silver, and they are noticeably yellow, so even those would only cost about 5 pence per coin extra.

 

 

On 11/10/2021 at 11:30, LawrenceChard said:

I suspect that the RM are not aware that sovereigns were normally yellow because they contained some silver, and when production of them restarted in 1957, nobody thought about it. Since then they have just blindly followed the example set in 1957.

I'm sure you are right, and many of our competitors do that. It is very common practice by American dealers, but I prefer to give sound honest advice, repeat business, and a good reputation for honesty and integrity.

I do notice many examples of not just hype, but dishonesty, misleading advertising and practises, and cynical marketing, which I do comment on, but try to do so with some caution, for various reasons.

😎

 

On 11/10/2021 at 16:21, LawrenceChard said:

No, I have tested hundreds, possibly thousands of sovereigns, including most dates and mintmarks, the small date set there is representative. Believe it.

There were  a few hundred on Flickr, but no longer.

I have a project to publish a large dataset, but to do it efficiently, we need to hook the Niton up to a PC and database, and we are already paddling very hard under the surface, on our systems etc.

Mode silver content on pre'QEII is around 3 to 4 ppt (0.4%), that's all it takes.

 

The response I got from a senior marketing officer at the Royal Mint was interesting:

I was too late for anything to change with regard to the 2022 gold sovereigns, as there release was imminent, which was probably common knowledge. This was no surprise.

 "As part of our ongoing customer research with our customer base  we are in the process of review the market opinion on the colour of the Sovereign, and make an informed decision on this for future launches."

This sounds hopeful!

I did also ask could we buy some with a silver content, as an exclusive:

"As the Sovereign is our flagship brand, we need to ensure consistency, so any colour change would need to be across the board, rather than bespoke for an order."

While I understand that, I do not necessarily agree with it, in fact it would provide almost indisputable evidence in favour of inclusion of silver to reinstate the previous yellow colour.

Perhaps I should suggest they could strike ours with a special Chards logo privy mark:

I  must ask Doug to mock one up.

 

 

[Arganto]

6 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

we are in the process of review the market opinion on the colour of the Sovereign,

I wonder how they will go about this? A survey perhaps? Or maybe just telepathy...

I would suggest a mail drop from everyone with five minutes to spare, but inundating them may not work.

[Foster88]

28 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The response I got from a senior marketing officer at the Royal Mint was interesting:

I was too late for anything to change with regard to the 2022 gold sovereigns, as there release was imminent, which was probably common knowledge. This was no surprise.

 "As part of our ongoing customer research with our customer base  we are in the process of review the market opinion on the colour of the Sovereign, and make an informed decision on this for future launches."

This sounds hopeful!

I did also ask could we buy some with a silver content, as an exclusive:

"As the Sovereign is our flagship brand, we need to ensure consistency, so any colour change would need to be across the board, rather than bespoke for an order."

While I understand that, I do not necessarily agree with it, in fact it would provide almost indisputable evidence in favour of inclusion of silver to reinstate the previous yellow colour.

Perhaps I should suggest they could strike ours with a special Chards logo privy mark:

I  must ask Doug to mock one up.

 

 

This sounds hopeful.

I don’t know if anyone received a surgery email from RM recently? I don’t usually bother with those things.

I did fill it out and at the end there were comments to suggest how might they improve their products. I put in the comments that they should return to the old ‘gold’ colour sovereigns and reintroduction silver in future.

Wether this will even get read is anyone’s guess but they might just start listening.

[LawrenceChard]

4 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The response I got from a senior marketing officer at the Royal Mint was interesting:

I was too late for anything to change with regard to the 2022 gold sovereigns, as there release was imminent, which was probably common knowledge. This was no surprise.

 "As part of our ongoing customer research with our customer base  we are in the process of review the market opinion on the colour of the Sovereign, and make an informed decision on this for future launches."

This sounds hopeful!

I did also ask could we buy some with a silver content, as an exclusive:

"As the Sovereign is our flagship brand, we need to ensure consistency, so any colour change would need to be across the board, rather than bespoke for an order."

While I understand that, I do not necessarily agree with it, in fact it would provide almost indisputable evidence in favour of inclusion of silver to reinstate the previous yellow colour.

Perhaps I should suggest they could strike ours with a special Chards logo privy mark:

I  must ask Doug to mock one up.

 

 

Well, that didn't take him long:

...and definitely looks better in yellow than in red:

No, I wouldn't want the Royal Mint to do it in copper red!

 

[LawrenceChard]

We got Doug to re-shoot pictures of the two different extremes of colour for gold sovereigns:

He photographed a 2021 UK proof gold sovereign, and a 2005 Australian proof sovereign, both in identical lighting, with identical processing, so that the composite image shown is a true and accurate representation of their colours and the difference.

Both are 22ct gold (91.66'%) of course; the difference in composition being that the Royal Mint's UK coin is alloyed with 8.3% copper and no silver, while the Perth Mint produced "Sydney" coin is alloyed with 8.3% silver, and no copper.

@ChardsCoinandBullionDealer should be producing a simple poll to ask TSF members which they prefer.

There is a case for doing the comparison using a recent red gold sovereign as above, but comparing it with an earlier Royal Mint sovereign, but this is not quite as simple as it sounds, as there would be a number of choices, and some practical difficulties in comparing like with like.

One alternative would have been an 1887 Victoria Jubilee head London Mint sovereign. These contain about 1.2% silver, and are noticeably yellow compared with other sovereigns of the same era of different years or from different mints. We do have an 1887 proof one in stock, or we could have compared "bullion" versions. 

A second alternative would have been to use an 1817 sovereign, preferably in "minty" condition, to retain like for like comparison. An 1817 we tested some time ago contained marginally more silver then copper, at about 4.5% and 4.0% respectively.

A third way would have been to select a sovereign with about 0.4% silver, which I have noted is a fairly typical content for many pre-1957 sovereigns, but this is my own very subjective observation formed after testing hundreds or possibly thousands of sovereigns, but not using any detailed objective statistical analysis of the test results. Selecting a truly representational coin would also have been difficult and rather subjective.

We could attempt a poll using all of the above, and also some other intermediate silver contents, but this would make the choices more complicated to poll, and may have diluted or distorted any conclusions we could draw, in addition to requiring extra work and effort creating images with accurate colour renditions. I chose to "Keep it Simple".

 

[sovereignsteve]

5 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

One alternative would have been an 1887 Victoria Jubilee head London Mint sovereign. These contain about 1.2% silver, and are noticeably yellow compared with other sovereigns of the same era of different years

The 1887 is an interesting case. I'm only going from memory; at the moment I'm not able to collect a few together for a direct comparison.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the alloy varied between denominations. I have the impression that the £2 might well contain the most siver. I'm not sure about the £5 as nearly all of those I have held have been fakes!
The £1 coins seem to be the most consistent in colour. In the case of the half, however, they do seem to vary. I have seen quite a few that have been noticeably bronze, similar to today's offerings.

[LawrenceChard]

11 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

The 1887 is an interesting case. I'm only going from memory; at the moment I'm not able to collect a few together for a direct comparison.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the alloy varied between denominations. I have the impression that the £2 might well contain the most siver. I'm not sure about the £5 as nearly all of those I have held have been fakes!
The £1 coins seem to be the most consistent in colour. In the case of the half, however, they do seem to vary. I have seen quite a few that have been noticeably bronze, similar to today's offerings.

I have tested all of the other 1887-L JH denominations, multiple times for each. I don't recall mentally registering any inconsistency, so my informed guess is that they are all similar, but in the fullness of time, I will try to get round to recording the data.

[Arganto]

I just noticed how nice in colour the IOM sovereign coins are (specifically 1973 in this case, there are some for sale in the trade section I was nosing at). It made me have a look at the high-res images on Chards website and some of the IOM coins do look quite 'yellow'.

Have these had the analysis treatment at any point @LawrenceChard? My apologies if this has already been brought up.

[LawrenceChard]

10 hours ago, Liam84 said:

I just noticed how nice in colour the IOM sovereign coins are (specifically 1973 in this case, there are some for sale in the trade section I was nosing at). It made me have a look at the high-res images on Chards website and some of the IOM coins do look quite 'yellow'.

Have these had the analysis treatment at any point @LawrenceChard? My apologies if this has already been brought up.

Thanks for asking.

I am sure I have tested Manx sovereigns, including 1973, in the past. Unfortunately, I do not have the results anywhere I can find them easily, so I may have to do them again.

I am also sure they will contain some silver, because if they had been the very red gold / copper alloy, I would have remembered, because it looks so awful.

This has left me trying to think what else I have seen that was so bad that I would never forget it, rather like watching Quatermass from behind the sofa when I was only 10 years old.

I might try asking Pobjoy Mint, as they might have some records of the alloy content.

 

[LawrenceChard]

On 09/10/2021 at 22:14, LawrenceChard said:

It is almost universally agreed that gold sovereigns, together with multiples and fractions would look better yellow by adding some silver to the alloy, rather than the modern coppery red colour created by using only copper in the alloy, and no silver.

I have frequently commented on it, and produced XRF alloy analysis as evidence that there was always silver in older sovereigns, and that the absence of silver, producing red gold coins is a recent (since about 1957) aberration.

There are many threads on TSF which mention this, and also infomation and blog pages on the Chards website.

On Thursday 23rd September, I wrote an e-mail to Anne Jessop and two other members of the Royal Mint management team, stating the case for adding silver, and doing so as early as in the anticipated 2022 Royal Coat of Arms sovereigns.

I was pleasantly surprised to get a response as early as the next day, but it was only from one of the recipients letting me know they had forwarded it to a more appropriate member of their team. Following that, I had been expecting a substantive response shortly afterwards, even if it was to say "no", or "thanks". It has been almost three weeks now, and a thought just occurred to me, that the delay and absence of response may just be because I have hit a proverbial nail on the head, and that they are about to issue yellow gold sovereigns with some silver content, in which case, they would not wish to pre-empt their embargo or announcement. Or perhaps they are mulling over my suggestion...

Any bets?

 

On 11/10/2021 at 14:57, sovereignsteve said:

@LawrenceChard

Does my memory fail me (again!) or have I seen you post a comparison of the XRF results of different eras of sovereigns?

You have stated that the mint started producing only gold/copper alloys in 1957, ba'ht any silver, but George v sovs seem equally "red" to my eyes. Any data?

 

On 14/10/2021 at 08:06, Liam84 said:

I'm going to have (another) trawl through @LawrenceChard's available data set, mostly for fun but also to go over the early QEII coins. I've got a few that are quite pleasing to the eye and look very different to the modern copper only examples; I had assumed there was a little silver in the Gillick's and thought I had read as such on Mr. Chard's published data...my memory is a little hotwired these days so it could just be me...

 

On 22/10/2021 at 14:06, dicker said:

I could not agree more.  The Gillick Sovereign is a very “honest” coin with a great strike.

The RM lost their way with the bullion sovereign from Y2K until now as far as I am concerned.  

Best

Dicker

I have been asked in this thread and elsewhere about QEII sovereigns, and Gillick portrait ones in particular.

Yesterday I happened to test a few 1968 sovereigns, here are the results:

The important number is the 4 ppt of silver content, which is why it looks a pleasant yellow instead of rotten red.

Here is the reverse photo of the same coin:

and the obverse:

I will test more when I get the time.

[dicker]

Remarkable that just a “trace” of silver makes such a difference to the tone of a Sovereign. 
 

Thanks for the test results!

[Foster88]

3 hours ago, dicker said:

Remarkable that just a “trace” of silver makes such a difference to the tone of a Sovereign. 
 

Thanks for the test results!

Which makes you wonder, with such little extra cost to the mint at 0.4% why wouldn’t they add the silver to newer sovereigns.

I think if they continue to exclude the silver content from future releases it’s to save face and not to admit they made a mistake by ever removing it in the first place.

[LawrenceChard]

5 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

Thanks for asking.

I am sure I have tested Manx sovereigns, including 1973, in the past. Unfortunately, I do not have the results anywhere I can find them easily, so I may have to do them again.

I am also sure they will contain some silver, because if they had been the very red gold / copper alloy, I would have remembered, because it looks so awful.

This has left me trying to think what else I have seen that was so bad that I would never forget it, rather like watching Quatermass from behind the sofa when I was only 10 years old.

I might try asking Pobjoy Mint, as they might have some records of the alloy content.

 

 

16 hours ago, Liam84 said:

I just noticed how nice in colour the IOM sovereign coins are (specifically 1973 in this case, there are some for sale in the trade section I was nosing at). It made me have a look at the high-res images on Chards website and some of the IOM coins do look quite 'yellow'.

Have these had the analysis treatment at any point @LawrenceChard? My apologies if this has already been brought up.

How's this for service:

Gold 916

Copper 43

Silver 41

All ppt (parts per thousand).

I also blinked at the weight, 40.438cts 8.076 grams, but I think I remember seeing Manx sovereigns being heavy before now.

[Arganto]

12 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Silver 41

Nice! If Pobjoy can do it...👀

[AgCoyote]

Maybe I'm a weirdo(perhaps a given since I'm American) but I kinda like my reddish pink sovereigns. They look really cool when combined with the other 9999 coins.