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 Replies: 9 / Views: 1,731 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
589 Posts |
Hi All,
I have been looking into buying gold coins but I have been a bit confused with gold purity and actual gold content plus the number of karats in the piece.
Can someone enlighten me with how this works? For example, in 1 post someone recommends the Mexican gold 20 peso coin. another recommendation was a a quarter Indian gold coin. If there is a formula I would love to know it.
thanks
ST
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2843 Posts |
I believe that karats (unlike carats in diamonds) in reference to gold is simply a purity measurement. 24k is .999 and so the math works. a us coin would be 21.6k and people would probably call it 22k. simply multiply the purity .900 *24 and you have the Karats.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3079 Posts |
24 Karat signifies a proportion and shouldn't be confused with weight. All alloys of gold are calculated on a basis of 24 parts 14K is 14 parts gold and 10 parts other metals. Gold filled will give you a headache trying to keep it straight.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
589 Posts |
Thanks BigSilver and Circus.
It gets confusing because the gold coins I really want to buy first is the pre-1933 coins.
What other coins are .999% pure like the gold maples?
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1051 Posts |
Don't worry about "karats" when it comes to gold coins. You're dealing with primarily 90% and 91.67% pure for most US gold coins. While these are 21.6K and 22K respectively, there's no need to back-convert it to a karat value. It's more useful when you're dealing with jewelry - a 14K solid chain that weighs 16 grams is (14/24) X 16 = 9.33g true gold weight. If you do this kind of scrap value calculation with any sort of regularity you'll memorize 10K is .4167, 14K is .5833, 18k is .750, and 22K is .9167. So if you have a 14K chain that's 16g, you immediately know it's .5833 X 16g for actual gold content.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1051 Posts |
PS - to make life really easy, to go the NGC site, then Resources > Price guides > Coin Melt Values, you will find the composition and ounce weight of US coins. This gives you the number you really want: precious metal content expressed in troy ounces. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4591 Posts |
Usually you will see - on quality sites like NGC's - the coin weight and the actual gold weight. If it's .999 fine, they are essentially the same. if it's .900 fine, then 90% is gold and 10% is silver or copper. So the coin will weigh more than 1oz to give you the one ounce of gold. Pre 1933 US coins do not measure out neatly into ounces, quarter ounces and tenth ounces (AGW) like the modern bullion coins do. You are buying AGW, nobody cares about the rest of the alloy. -----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2023 Posts |
Quote:
What other coins are .999% pure like the gold maples? I'm sure someone will correct me or post a more complete list, but off the top of my head: Austrian Philharmonic British Britannia Canadian Maple Leaf Chinese Panda South African Krugerrand United States Buffalo The First Spouse coins also qualify, as well as the 2014 Kennedy gold, and last year's centennial editions of the Mercury dime, Standing Libery Quarter, and Walking Liberty half. Then there's this year's 225th anniversary of the US Mint... |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
570 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1913 Posts |
British Queen's Beasts are also .999 pure.
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Replies: 9 / Views: 1,731 |
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Posted 07/19/2017 1:08 pm
