Gold Sovereign premiums

[Hotdog]

Does anybody know what the premiums have been on Gold Sovereigns in past years. The following is an extract from another site "in the 1960's there was a premium of 40% on trading gold sovereigns". What premiums would have been paid in past decades?

[Pete]

I started stacking 12 years ago and my sovereigns and half sovereigns were mostly purchased from HGM and BbP ( but some on eBay ) with premiums over spot between 2 and 3 % - MAXIMUM.
Bullion sovereigns weren't categorised by Monarch so these dealers just called a sovereign a sovereign and didn't care about dates and stuff selling on a FIFO basis generally the same day.
Some days these companies only had a few coins to sell and often none at all.
Now with many more people collecting and buying coins these bullion dealers have morphed into coin shops and many premiums are ridiculously high, but that's maybe what the market will bear, although I see this more "opportunist" if someone is so desperate to acquire a specific date.
Selling back to them, whether a Victorian shield reverse, or an FDC certificated proof, only gets you 97 - 98% ( 100% maybe but I've never had that offer ) of spot most of the time.

[LawrenceChard]

3 hours ago, Hotdog said:

Does anybody know what the premiums have been on Gold Sovereigns in past years. The following is an extract from another site "in the 1960's there was a premium of 40% on trading gold sovereigns". What premiums would have been paid in past decades?

The "other site" you mentioned probably got their information from here:

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

"What premiums would have been paid in past decades?"

Although you did not say which decades, or how many:

About the same as now, apart from 2008/9 when almost everybody, except for one Blackpool dealer, stuck their premiums up to take advantage!

😎

[LawrenceChard]

6 hours ago, Pete said:

I started stacking 12 years ago and my sovereigns and half sovereigns were mostly purchased from HGM and BbP ( but some on eBay ) with premiums over spot between 2 and 3 % - MAXIMUM.
Bullion sovereigns weren't categorised by Monarch so these dealers just called a sovereign a sovereign and didn't care about dates and stuff selling on a FIFO basis generally the same day.
Some days these companies only had a few coins to sell and often none at all.
Now with many more people collecting and buying coins these bullion dealers have morphed into coin shops and many premiums are ridiculously high, but that's maybe what the market will bear, although I see this more "opportunist" if someone is so desperate to acquire a specific date.
Selling back to them, whether a Victorian shield reverse, or an FDC certificated proof, only gets you 97 - 98% ( 100% maybe but I've never had that offer ) of spot most of the time.

A well known Blackpool dealer usually pays spot for sovereigns, and only occasionally less if they / we get far too many, or if there is a big gold price spike. Even then, it is 99% not 98% or 97% which some of the scrap dealers pay.

😎

Edited September 20, 2022 by LawrenceChard

[Hotdog]

On 20/09/2022 at 15:13, Hotdog said:

Does anybody know what the premiums have been on Gold Sovereigns in past years. The following is an extract from another site "in the 1960's there was a premium of 40% on trading gold sovereigns". What premiums would have been paid in past decades?

Were other Gold coins from non UK also experiencing the same high premiums in the 1960s or was it just sovereigns?

[Hotdog]

1 minute ago, Hotdog said:

Were other Gold coins from non UK also experiencing the same high premiums in the 1960s or was it just sovereigns?

An interesting read is "Counterfeiter" The Story of a British Master Forger. Its the story of Charles Black (born Lewisham 1928) co-written by Michael Horsnell in 1989. He mentions that one of his associates made a fantastic living from sovereigns made in Switzerland from Lebanese dies (which reputedly contained a high amount of gold) and sold them at a high premium in London to well known concerns in the 60s. 

[Hotdog]

Another good read that I just finished is "The Art Of Making Money" the storey of a master counterfeiter by Jason Kersten, first printed in 2009. Its set in the USA and covers the life storey of Art Williams, born 1972.  "His notoriety came as being the first to break all the security features within the 1996-issued $100 bill"

[LawrenceChard]

On 20/09/2022 at 18:51, LawrenceChard said:

A well known Blackpool dealer usually pays spot for sovereigns, and only occasionally less if they / we get far too many, or if there is a big gold price spike. Even then, it is 99% not 98% or 97% which some of the scrap dealers pay.

😎

The above mentioned Blackpool dealer will soon be paying 101%, if not already.

😎

[Hotdog]

On 20/09/2022 at 18:47, LawrenceChard said:

The "other site" you mentioned probably got their information from here:

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

"What premiums would have been paid in past decades?"

Although you did not say which decades, or how many:

About the same as now, apart from 2008/9 when almost everybody, except for one Blackpool dealer, stuck their premiums up to take advantage!

😎

I never did get my head around what the premiums would have been. What mark-up was the Lebanese forger making on coins that were nigh on 22carat? I could see that there could be a fairly large mark-up if sending coins from the Gulf to India, which has always had a large Gold import tax, but would that same premium exist in the UK at the same time?