"bullion" vs Ex-Mounted

[ShineyMagpie]

As a relative new person to the hobby I do have a question, bullion grade vs Ex-Mount. Now my understanding is that bullion grade is effectively non numismatic "normal" coin, therefore its worth is in the intrinsic value of the metal itself. Now i understand that Ex-mounted Coins may have some "problems/defects" the milled edged for example may have some solder marks, the coin may have been polished on one side or scratch on the other. But, and this is kind of m point the coin itself still has all of the precious metal that it did previously. Now noting that its never going to get a good grade if someone were to try and grade it, but as with generic bullion you wouldn't necessarily either. Yet I oftan see in trade things will trade for x ammount ( no ex-mounted), which of course is fine and their preference. So should Ex mounted stuff sell for less than spot? do you know of this happening? im just curious to hear people opinions and thoughts ? and grow my knowledge.

[Silverlocks]

A 'bullion' sov might still have a little bit of premium over and above the spot value of the coin.  If it's something with a bit of a rarity factor such as a shield, it may have a significant premium over spot.  Victoria sovs turn up in mounts quite often, and would normally command a bit of a premium over a straight bullion sov if they weren't damaged.  A coin that has been polished or damaged may reduce its value to essentially scrap gold, and is generally not desirable to folks buying sovs on the secondary market unless priced attractively, so it can be less than the value of a bullion sov.

Generally you wouldn't get a coin like this slabbed unless it was very rare or otherwise noteworthy somehow.  However, the condition of a coin still affects its desirability, particularly for in-demand effigies such as young-head Victoria.  A young vic in (say) VF condition is still a bit desirable to some folks - enough that they tend to go for a bit of a premium from dealers.  One that's been polished will lose the majority of that value and one that has visible damage or soldering will lose pretty much all value above the scrap price of the gold.

[sovereignsteve]

9 minutes ago, ShineyMagpie said:

So should Ex mounted stuff sell for less than spot?

No such word as "should" in this hobby.

Coins will sell according to market sentiment and supply/demand.

Ex-mount coins will often sell at scrap values if they are bog-standard and hold no collecting value. However, if the damage isn't to bad they can sell as bullion grade or if rare, can sell for appropriately higher prices.

[ShineyMagpie]

22 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

No such word as "should" in this hobby.

Coins will sell according to market sentiment and supply/demand.

Thanks for the response, I understand this is purely hypothetical but hopefully helpful to myself and others if I affix some point of reference to the conversation.

so generic bullion sovereign for example, is selling approx £375. Now at 7.98g 22ct = 7.3224g fine gold content. Gold Market current £48.50 per g X 7.3224= £355.14

So generic Sovereign is approx 5.64% above spot. Your suggesting the 'value' of ex Mount is closer to £355. 

 

[SidS]

Ex-mount guineas seem to sell fairly easily, often well above scrap value but obviously well, well below the undamaged coin prices.

I regularly see George III guineas in ex-mount in the £400-£550 range and they shift. Undamaged they go for about £600+. Consider that the melt value is about £350 per coin and they are anything but rare.

I suspect pre-Victorian sovereigns behave in exactly the same way.

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, ShineyMagpie said:

As a relative new person to the hobby I do have a question, bullion grade vs Ex-Mount. Now my understanding is that bullion grade is effectively non numismatic "normal" coin, therefore its worth is in the intrinsic value of the metal itself. Now i understand that Ex-mounted Coins may have some "problems/defects" the milled edged for example may have some solder marks, the coin may have been polished on one side or scratch on the other. But, and this is kind of m point the coin itself still has all of the precious metal that it did previously. Now noting that its never going to get a good grade if someone were to try and grade it, but as with generic bullion you wouldn't necessarily either. Yet I oftan see in trade things will trade for x ammount ( no ex-mounted), which of course is fine and their preference. So should Ex mounted stuff sell for less than spot? do you know of this happening? im just curious to hear people opinions and thoughts ? and grow my knowledge.

"Ex-Mounted" only describes a historical fact, and not the grade of the coin.

A coin could be ex-mount, yet still be in perfect mint condition (if that is not an oxymoron), or it could be completely ruined, scratched, underweight, and  / or contaminated by solder. It could be so bad that it is impososible to distinguish whether it is genuine or fake.

One Blackpool dealer offers "Grade C" sovereigns, which are too bad to sell as bullion (although I often see similar coins and fakes which have been supplied by some of our less transparent competitors).

Anything worse gets scrapped.

😎

[Orpster]

22 minutes ago, ShineyMagpie said:

Thanks for the response, I understand this is purely hypothetical but hopefully helpful to myself and others if I affix some point of reference to the conversation.

so generic bullion sovereign for example, is selling approx £375. Now at 7.98g 22ct = 7.3224g fine gold content. Gold Market current £48.50 per g X 7.3224= £355.14

So generic Sovereign is approx 5.64% above spot. Your suggesting the 'value' of ex Mount is closer to £355. 

 

Its hard to have a formula for this sort of thing and the market and the margins are ever moving,

A 5% over spot price on any sovereign is rare from dealers these days, even for best value sovereigns.  And stock levels are super low and demand seems to be through the roof so premiums seem to be creeping up and up from dealers.

Where ex-mount is concerned I would pay a lot more than spot for a Guinea or a George IV half sovereign ex-mount or a double sovereign if it was not polished/harshly cleaned, but I would not even buy a 1905 (for example) for spot if it had been mounted if there was one speck of solder on the coin.  A lot of mounts, those that hold the coin rather than use solder, do not really damage the coin but I find anything with any age that has been mounted has been treated like jewellery and polished to buggery, which ruins any premium on anything but the most rare of coins.  

[LawrenceChard]

32 minutes ago, ShineyMagpie said:

Thanks for the response, I understand this is purely hypothetical but hopefully helpful to myself and others if I affix some point of reference to the conversation.

so generic bullion sovereign for example, is selling approx £375. Now at 7.98g 22ct = 7.3224g fine gold content. Gold Market current £48.50 per g X 7.3224= £355.14

So generic Sovereign is approx 5.64% above spot. Your suggesting the 'value' of ex Mount is closer to £355. 

Your weight calculation is incorrect.

This page is much more accurate, although I did round the weight to 3 decimal places:

https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/technical-specification-of-a-gold-sovereign/181

This calculation is correct to more decimal places:

20lbs. troy of standard or crown gold (= bar)	20		lbs troy
	12		troy ounces per pound
	240		troy ounces
	480		grains per troy ounce
	115200		grains
	934.5		sovereigns per bar
	123.274478330658		grains per sovereign
One grain =	64.79891		milligrammes
One grain =	0.06479891		grams
Therefore sovereign weighs	7.98805182664527		grams
Fineness (22/24)	0.916666666666667		fine
Sovereign fine gold content	7.32238084109149		grams
Grams per troy ounce	31.1034768
Sovereign fine gold content	0.23542001070091		troy ounces

It is understandable that you have used the wrong starting figure.

The Royal Mint state the incorrect figure on almost all of their certificates, and the pages of their website.

About 90+% of all dealers simply use the same incorrect data, and actually, so do "we" on most of our sales pages. This is due to be corrected.

I must get round to informing the Royal Mint, although they may well read it here first.

There are a number of other RM errors which I should also get round to informing them about.

😎

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, sovereignsteve said:

No such word as "should" in this hobby.

Coins will sell according to market sentiment and supply/demand.

Ex-mount coins will often sell at scrap values if they are bog-standard and hold no collecting value. However, if the damage isn't to bad they can sell as bullion grade or if rare, can sell for appropriately higher prices.

There should be!

😎

[SidS]

17 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

I must get round to informing the Royal Mint, although they may well read it here first.

There are a number of other RM errors which I should also get round to informing them about.

😎

If your success rate with the simple colour and silver content of modern sovereigns is anything to go by, we may be here a fair while yet.

[ShineyMagpie]

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

Your weight calculation is incorrect.

This page is much more accurate, although I did round the weight to 3 decimal places:

https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/technical-specification-of-a-gold-sovereign/181

 

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

Therefore sovereign weighs 7.98805182664527   grams   Fineness (22/24) 0.916666666666667   fine   Sovereign fine gold content 7.3223

@LawrenceChard excuse my ignorance, but why are my calculations incorrect. They appear to be the same figures?

[Petra]

If you want to see/test any theories try Sheffield Auction Galleries on the fifth of January. There is a mounted 1917 full sovereign for auction. The bonus is, that it is in a loose mount. Covers a few bases … mounted sovereign, rare date etc. …. 🤔🤔

[LawrenceChard]

15 minutes ago, ShineyMagpie said:

 

@LawrenceChard excuse my ignorance, but why are my calculations incorrect. They appear to be the same figures?

Use both eyes, and look at the decimal places.

If you start with 7.98 instead of 7.98805182664527, you introduce a rounding error before you start any calculations, so it would be almost impossible to get the correct answer, unless you made more errors. The odds against doing so would be a few trilllion to one against.

😎

[LawrenceChard]

1 minute ago, Petra said:

If you want to see/test any theories try Sheffield Auction Galleries on the fifth of January. There is a mounted 1917 full sovereign for auction. The bonus is, that it is in a loose mount. Covers a few bases … mounted sovereign, rare date etc. …. 🤔🤔

It's not yet another London Mint one is it? There seem to be a lot of them turning up in local auctions!

😎

[Petra]

1 minute ago, LawrenceChard said:

It's not yet another London Mint one is it? There seem to be a lot of them turning up in local auctions!

😎

No! Not too far from me, was going to go over and have a look first before any bid, unfortunately I’ve been buying on here!🤔 I think that with a coin like this it certainly would pay to view it first. (I know that sounds a little obvious🤔) They are pretty poor with their lot photos 🫢

[ShineyMagpie]

9 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Use both eyes, and look at the decimal places.

Wow subtle reply, 

Yes I had made a typo in this instance and missed the 2nd 8, not disputing that rounding early exponentiates the problem. However, if you had also continued to read the calculations i eneded on:

2 hours ago, ShineyMagpie said:

7.3224g fine gold content. Gold Market current £48.50 per g X 7.3224= £355.14

Yes I did round 7.32238(+) to 7.3224 but thought for ease and simplicity of calculations that was fine.

I do appreciate the rrepones's I myself am trying to learn more. And hopefully this will also prove useful to others.

I would press thanks to replies but as a basic user I have exceeded my limit 😅

[LawrenceChard]

26 minutes ago, ShineyMagpie said:

Wow subtle reply, 

Yes I had made a typo in this instance and missed the 2nd 8, not disputing that rounding early exponentiates the problem. However, if you had also continued to read the calculations i eneded on:

Yes I did round 7.32238(+) to 7.3224 but thought for ease and simplicity of calculations that was fine.

I do appreciate the rrepones's I myself am trying to learn more. And hopefully this will also prove useful to others.

I would press thanks to replies but as a basic user I have exceeded my limit 😅

A less subtle answer was available!

😎

[Britannia47]

1 hour ago, ShineyMagpie said:

Wow subtle reply, 

Yes I had made a typo in this instance and missed the 2nd 8, not disputing that rounding early exponentiates the problem. However, if you had also continued to read the calculations i eneded on:

Yes I did round 7.32238(+) to 7.3224 but thought for ease and simplicity of calculations that was fine.

I do appreciate the rrepones's I myself am trying to learn more. And hopefully this will also prove useful to others.

I would press thanks to replies but as a basic user I have exceeded my limit 😅

Don’t be hard on your self!  You’ve just fallen into LCs spiders web of mathematical mumble-jumbo. It was no contest! He also has an honours degree in Pedantics, grammar, and spelling…….😃😃

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, Britannia47 said:

Don’t be hard on your self!  You’ve just fallen into LCs spiders web of mathematical mumble-jumbo. It was no contest! He also has an honours degree in Pedantics, grammar, and spelling…….😃😃

My maths (although in this case, it was simple arithmetic) is not mumbo-jumbo.

I would be happy to accept the honours degrees though.

Don't forget didactics!

😎

[Petra]

Round up if required after the calculation! Not before🤔🫢😁

[sovereignsteve]

7 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

overeign fine gold content 0.23542001070091   troy ounces

Damn, I've been incorrectly using 0.2354 all this time and introducing a 0.0085% error into all my sovereign calculations. Sorry that should be 0.00849617%😉

[LawrenceChard]

28 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

"overeign fine gold content 0.23542001070091   troy ounces"

Damn, I've been incorrectly using 0.2354 all this time and introducing a 0.0085% error into all my sovereign calculations. Sorry that should be 0.00849617%😉

... and from now on, you will be known as "overeignsteve"!

😎

[LawrenceChard]

On 30/12/2022 at 21:14, Petra said:

Round up if required after the calculation! Not before🤔🫢😁

And multiply before you divide.

😎

[Booky586]

BODMAS! 😀

[LawrenceChard]

26 minutes ago, Booky586 said:

BODMAS! 😀

Perhaps, but BODMAS places divison before multiplication, so BOMDAS would be better!

😎