Pure gold content: premium of sovs vs brits

[JohnA1]

I've been doing some calculations regarding the price of 1 oz of pure gold, comparing buying 1 britannia vs 4 sovs.

Of course I have adjusted for weight, choosing the quoted prices (based on 4 sovs) because it is more fair to compare like-for-like.

I've used prices from various online dealers with goods available, choosing used/mix where possible, aiming for lowest price inc delivery

Finally I used the average price of a 1Oz Britannia and the average extrapolated price of 1Oz pure gold from sovereigns.

The premium of sovs turned out to be £79.9 for an ounce of pure gold. Ouch. That is an average 4.75% premium compared to getting that ounce of shiny from a 1 Oz Britannia. And the Britannias themselves come with a 3-8.7% premium over spot.

Food for thought - yes the sovs sell easier, but the extra premium may not be trivial

The figures are based on today's prices, and these are troubled times..

[CazLikesCoins]

 

I often thought Brits were better value than sovereigns although there's a lot of value to liquidate in a Brit if you just fancy raising funds to re-carpet the spare room. That said I'm not too fussy about quarter ounce premiums as even a sovereign purchased early last year has increased its value noticeably. Also the initial outlay of Brits puts me off. And the convenience of liquidating sovereigns is presently around the value bracket I'm comfortable trading within. 

🙂 Nope, despite premiums I like my gold in bite sized chunks that I can trade with. Brits or any bar over 10 grams and I'm oot. 

[TringSilver]

Yes @modofantasma has done a YouTube video on the same.

I think I prefer the liquidity of being able to take £380 out a time rather than £1600 or whatever the spot may be at the time. 

 

[CANV]

The appeal of sovs was the lack of premium ‘they used’ to attract ..

a nice sized (£ amount wise) 22 carat tax free coin.  
Widely available with a great history and if you know your stuff/it’s your thing , a big collector market as well for the rare ones 

Edited April 3, 2023 by CANV

[dicker]

Always calculate….always compare.

I buy both but for different reasons.  Do I overpay for Sovs - yup, but it’s what I want to collect / own and sometimes think will do well in the future. 

[kimchi]

You can't go wrong with either imo (depending on your circumstances, i.e. how many of each you hold). With what's probably coming you need a few Sovs if you're in gold (again all imo). I'm always wary of 1/10ths but even those (a few Kookaburra 30th anniversary) have done me proud and always will as a long-term hold. I haven't checked but I suspect the 1/10th and half Sovs now have an extra premium now the shoeshine boys are buying them (?).

They don't come around often if at all (and I can't see any on the horizon) but also look for 'opportunities'. The biggest one for me was was the QB Completer at around £20-£30 more than a Brit when gold was £1330 ish.

[JohnA1]

14 hours ago, dicker said:

Always calculate….always compare.

I buy both but for different reasons.  Do I overpay for Sovs - yup, but it’s what I want to collect / own and sometimes think will do well in the future. 

Exactly.

This was a calculation to evaluate the balance under current market conditions

[Darr3nG]

I monitor this fairly regularly, since starting the comparison project and always on the look-out for "anomolies"...

Right now, that 3.6% premium on a half oz Britannia from Tavex is looking like a really good buy:

	Avg	22K	24K
1/10 oz	18.00%	11.79%	17.83%
1/4 oz	12.00%	11.87%	9.91%
1/2 oz	8.00%	4.87%	3.59%
1 oz	3.50%	2.78%	3.28%
Sov	6.00%	7.31%
1/2 Sov	9.00%	7.31%

*note: this doesn't include data from all UK dealers, so there may be better deals out there.

[SidS]

I think half sovs trade at a premium more than simply half the weight of a full sovereign.

Vicky halves particularly so. George V should be exactly half of a full sov.

[JohnA1]

 

This is the raw data from my snapshot yesterday

Edited April 4, 2023 by JohnA1

[FourNinesFine]

14 hours ago, kimchi said:

 half Sovs now have an extra premium now the shoeshine boys are buying them (?).

 

Out of interest, who or what are the Shoeshine boys? 

[JohnA1]

8 minutes ago, FourNinesFine said:

Out of interest, who or what are the Shoeshine boys? 

Wild guess: Every, D1ck and Harry?

Edited April 4, 2023 by JohnA1

[FourNinesFine]

16 minutes ago, JohnA1 said:

Wild guess: Every, D1ck and Harry?

Ah, OK.  Ta

[SidS]

I was thinking yuppies.

[CANV]

1 hour ago, FourNinesFine said:

Out of interest, who or what are the Shoeshine boys? 

think its an old USA analogy from the 20's. when the shoeshine boys were telling the stockbrokers about their shares the brokers realised the game was nearly up..  

similar to the strippers having 3 houses in the Big Short film.    

[JohnA1]

https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/04/15/211503/index.htm

when your grandma starts giving you share tips, probably the bubble has hit all-time highs and it's time to sell 🤣

[CazLikesCoins]

17 minutes ago, JohnA1 said:

https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/04/15/211503/index.htm

when your grandma starts giving you share tips, probably the bubble has hit all-time highs and it's time to sell 🤣

An acquaintance of mine had a grandma who saved sovereigns for years, in a linen cash bag bag of all things, and when she died nobody could find where she'd hidden it. Somewhere out there is a bag full of gold coins. Dozens of them 🤩 Someone will find them one day. Maybe 😶

[JohnA1]

Old timers who had been through wars and currency collapses knew very well what real money is. It was passed on from their forefathers, as one of the survival skills.

It is a recent thing to treat metals with contempt, out-of-style, not-kewl, not-digital, i.e. not real in the modern world😅. It probably goes with the colours of the rainbow, non-binary body art.  They'll learn the hard way.

 

Sovereigns from grandma - yes of course.

Share tips - not so sure..

[CazLikesCoins]

31 minutes ago, JohnA1 said:

Old timers who had been through wars and currency collapses knew very well what real money is. It was passed on from their forefathers, as one of the survival skills.

It is a recent thing to treat metals with contempt, out-of-style, not-kewl, not-digital, i.e. not real in the modern world😅. It probably goes with the colours of the rainbow, non-binary body art.  They'll learn the hard way.

 

Sovereigns from grandma - yes of course.

Share tips - not so sure..

In decades to come people will still recognise gold coins and so fourth but what will they make of a Crypto key? I can't see Spinks publishing books, lists and values for them. They're a passing fad. Just like VHS and the rest of the digital age. For old timers anyway. The millennials can't wait to be fully indoctrinated into an augmented world where everything is online, including their brains. Who needs a book when you can have a Kindle, or a a vinyl album when there's MP3s?  Need a film? Forget hard copies, stream it. Where will it end lol. I think the less tactile the world becomes the less human it becomes. I'm sticking with my paperbacks. At least I can still read them when the power goes out.

Edited April 4, 2023 by CazLikesCoins

[CANV]

2 hours ago, CazLikesCoins said:

An acquaintance of mine had a grandma who saved sovereigns for years, in a linen cash bag bag of all things, and when she died nobody could find where she'd hidden it. Somewhere out there is a bag full of gold coins. Dozens of them 🤩 Someone will find them one day. Maybe 😶

It’s like Freddie the ‘frog ! 

[CANV]

I’ve heard a few ‘younger’ people I know talking about gold recently.  People who I would never expect to have an interest or even know it was a thing… 

a few of my mates discuss it with me but that’s because they know I’m a fan .  
im pretty sure pre/post Ukraine war and the recent inflation the so called professional classes shipped a bit in .  But the removal of the pension  lifetime cap will have put an end to that 

[FourNinesFine]

2 hours ago, CazLikesCoins said:

An acquaintance of mine had a grandma who saved sovereigns for years, in a linen cash bag bag of all things, and when she died nobody could find where she'd hidden it. Somewhere out there is a bag full of gold coins. Dozens of them 🤩 Someone will find them one day. Maybe 😶

I like to think she spent them while no-one was looking.

If she was anything like my Nan, she'll have converted them into 120,000 tins of biscuits.

[CazLikesCoins]

24 minutes ago, CANV said:

I’ve heard a few ‘younger’ people I know talking about gold recently.  People who I would never expect to have an interest or even know it was a thing… 

a few of my mates discuss it with me but that’s because they know I’m a fan .  
im pretty sure pre/post Ukraine war and the recent inflation the so called professional classes shipped a bit in .  But the removal of the pension  lifetime cap will have put an end to that 

I don't tell friends anything. They usually want to tag along whether to Costco or whatever activities I have and want to keep private. I have a tiny amount in the Harry Potter vault but on the odd occasion I make a trip out to add another sov' or whatever I don't want someone I know deciding to make a day out of it. Sat there with a flask going 'Ooh can I have a sov!' 'Ooh can I store my grandad's old watch in your box!' No bugger off every inch costs and I don't have the space. Well I do but I don't want my rental filled up with other peoples old junk lol.

Also I think people that aren't afflicted with gold fever think everyone into pms is a weirdo, as though 0% interest from the RBS should be enough to keep anyone happy.

Edited April 4, 2023 by CazLikesCoins

[CazLikesCoins]

18 minutes ago, FourNinesFine said:

I like to think she spent them while no-one was looking.

If she was anything like my Nan, she'll have converted them into 120,000 tins of biscuits.

I spoke to the girl in question a couple of weeks ago about Gran'ma's gold and she said the whole family spent months after her death trying to find out what happened to it. I believe she was quite frail in her last several years of life and her family are fairly sure she didn't have any opportunity to sell it or dispose of it. Might have been given away one halloween to kids trick or treating. Who knows, maybe she paid the window cleaner with it 🙃 

Maybe she posted the lot to 'we buy any gold' or whatever in one of those prepaid envelopes that used to get stuck through the letterbox. 

[FourNinesFine]

15 minutes ago, CazLikesCoins said:

 'Ooh can I store my grandad's old watch in your box!'

To be fair, I've used this line before...