What Would You Do? Bullion Gold Or Colonial Copper?

hmmm, is this hypothetical a bit too coin-based? (I initially felt that the hypothetical nature removed it from the tangible world of coins in the other forums) Should it be moved to the general coin forum?

Shale- ah, yeah, very true. Well, I was mostly trying to ask based upon the bullion-collectable value dichotomy. In essence, would you hold onto something that is pretty but just bullion, or would you get a high-value, crudely struck coin in copper that is really really fascinating in terms of historical context?

Your 20 Mark is not a "bullion coin," it's a Business Strike intended for circulation. It's just a fairly common one. In Mint State grades it carries a definite numismatic premium. There were 3 Emperors in 1888 in Prussia - Wilhelm I passed and was succeeded by his son, Frederick, who was already dying of cancer and only lasted a few months. He was succeeded by his own son, Wilhelm II, whose long and successful reign culminated in his starting WWI. All 3 monarchs were depicted on the 1888 20 Marks, and none of the 3 are particularly rare. The Frederick coin has interest as a one-year issue.

Those 3 different issues from the same year might be an interesting set, and the 20 Marks themselves are such a popular issue that they have their own PCGS Registry category.

The same thing will happen with the Colonials... As long as there is a market for the Colonials and someone is willing to pay you for it, the value will go up... However, with the Colonial, you will only have a small market to work with whereas the gold coin you will have a much larger market since gold is involved...

Well, with the recent exchange rate crash, $280 isn't really an affordable amount of money to me.

For that matter, assuming I somehow could afford it, I'd definitely take the 20 mark coin over a nondenominated bullion gold round, even if the latter was slightly larger; and in the sort of coinage I'm collecting there isn't really any copper coin (and might not even be a silver one) that would make me want to part with $200 (or, likely, even $100) worth of money unless it's such a valuable rarity that I know I can sell it for more than that anyway.

However - at least assuming I already had a gold coin (i.e. that this one wouldn't have been the first gold in my collection) - if the alternative offer was a similarly-priced bunch of (old enough) "junk" silver (e.g. a dozen or so common-date Morgans), I might well take the silver.

There will always be a strong market, because there are so few of these coins.


There is a small market because these coins are simply not abundant. There is a "much larger market" for the gold Mark the Op posted because


Gold plays second fiddle to historical context (not to mention mintage figures). I GUARANTEE you there are no colonials (unless you include Spanish silver, which the OP clearly stated colonial copper) that come close to touching that figure. The 1928 double eagle had a mintage of 8.8M. The Fugio cent on the other hand, had a mintage of a meager 400k. That fact ALONE is why there is a smaller market. Not because they are made of copper. There's just not enough examples, which guarantees a premium on even the poorest of specimens.

Oh this is easy. Old copper beats new gold every single time in my book. But people say I am odd.

I'm just wondering about the people saying that a coin from 1888 is "new".