Biggest Gold Coin Going On Sale

It's not exactly pocket change.

Teletrade, an Irvine company is selling the world's largest gold coin, a sale that could enter the record books in several categories:

•At 100 kilograms or about 220 pounds of gold, the coin - the first of at least five planned by the Royal Canadian Mint - holds a world record for weight. The previous record was 31 kilos set by the Austrian mint in 1994.

•The Canadian coin sets a new standard for purity: 99.999 percent solid gold bullion. The standard 24-karat gold piece is 99.99 percent pure.

•The 100-kilo coin is the world's first to have a face value of $1 million Canadian, which is about $940,000 U.S. But it's worth considerably more than face value.

•If melted down, the 220 pounds of bullion would be worth $2.4 million in U.S. currency.

Teletrade will take a 12 percent commission above the hammer price.

"It will set a record for Teletrade and, to our knowledge, be the most expensive coin offered at online auction," said Ian Russell, president of the Irvine-based online coin auction house. "Obviously, this takes things to a new level."

The eBay-style auction begins Monday and concludes Aug. 16 at 7 p.m. You can watch the bids rise at https://www.teletrade.com.

Teletrade opened as an automated phone-bidding auction house in 1986. It currently claims 161,000 registered members, who trade about $25 million in mostly newly-minted coins a year through online auctions, Russell said.

The Canadian 100-kilo coin dwarfs most Teletrade products. A Delaware quarter recently fetched $8,000, Russell said. A 2003 Lincoln Penny in perfect condition sold for $15,000.

A-Mark Precious Metals, a Teletrade affiliate that specializes in coin wholesaling, bought three of the five 100-kilo coins from the Royal Canadian Mint.

Teletrade and A-Mark are both subsidiaries of the New York-based Escala Group, a publicly traded holding company that also owns Irvine-based Bowers & Merena Auctions, a live auction house, and Collateral Finance Corp., which is offering 4.9 percent financing to the buyer of the 100-kilo Canadian coin.

A-Mark got the rights to purchase the mother-of-all gold coins because it is a major dealer of 1-ounce Canadian gold coins, said Gregory Roberts, chairman and chief executive officer of the Santa Monica-based coin wholesaler. The 1-ounce coins typically fetch $750 to $800 at auction, said Roberts. The price is closely tied to the value of gold, he said, a commodity that has more than doubled in value over the past five years.

The 100-kilo coin is stored at an undisclosed location guarded by shotgun-armed Brinks security guards. Earlier this week, a group of guards unpacked the coin from a foam-lined strong box to display it for photographers. None of the guards, who are used to handling lots of money, dared touch the gold, which is tough to tarnish but easy to dent.

"It won't be getting dented," Roberts said.

One side of the coin depicts a three-leaf cluster of Canadian maple leaves, gleaming against a background of frosted gold. The flip side shows Queen Elizabeth II, who reigns over Canada as sovereign of the British Commonwealth.

Roberts says there are about 5,000 potential bidders around the world, from individual coin collectors to corporate executives who might want the coin as a showpiece in their executive suite.

Bidders must undergo a background check to make sure they qualify as potential buyers, Roberts said.

The auction has set the Coin World abuzz.

"I'd say there's been a bit of an arms race in minting the biggest coins," said Jay Beeton, a spokesman for the American Numismatic Association in Colorado Springs. "The Royal Canadian Mint pretty well trumped everyone with this coin - its size, purity and rarity."

The Canadian mint will have a hard time breaking some records.

The highest price ever paid for a coin went to a 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle $20 gold piece, which sold at live auction in 2002 for $7.59 million.

The heaviest pieces of currency are believed to be stone disks traded on the Pacific Island of Yap, the largest of which tip the scales at more than 8,000 pounds.