Hello,
I'm thinking I could add a little more gold to my collection and was wondering if anyone here could tell me which gold coin is relatively common and cheap.
All I have at the moment is two pieces of fanam, which are interesting – pretty old, very small, and inexpensive (even under $20 if you're lucky). Are there such coins, from maybe 17-19th century, other than them? I suppose 2 shu is pretty close but I don't own one as of yet.
So, any suggestion would be helpful. Please enlighten me!
Mexican gold can be very cheap and easy to get; I bought my tiny 2 pesos for 50 euro, and my 2 1/2 pesos for 70 euro. Those coins are usually restrikes of a certain year (e.g. 1945 for both those denominations I mentioned).
Otherwise most old LMU gold coins the size of a pre-1914 10 franc coin can be had for around 110 euro, the price I paid for my 1911, if you're lucky.
2 Shu is also a good candidate, like you said, because of its low purity content. It also has an extra layer of history to it that the Mexican gold I mentioned above doesn't really have.
just for reference, the bullion price is currently around US$ 40/gram. http://www.livepriceofgold.com/euro-gold-price-per-gram.html
this price has been trending down for years, and has been struggling this year. analysts have differing opinions about this behavior.
i am not a financial advisor, so grain of salt and all that, but i would not buy any gold for at least another 12 months.
Jamais l'or n'a perdu la plus petite occasion de se montrer stupide. -Balzac
I wouldn't let the bullion price bother me unless I was going for modern bullion coins. For coins $100 and below, the premium you pay on top of the coin is more important than the gold content. Even if the price of gold dropped $200 today, you would only save around $10 on a Mexican 2 peso coin.
Thank you for the ideas guys! Personally, I do not care much for bullion values, and -- I concur with you, druzhynets -- collecting history is more fun and interesting! Gold will always have some value, more or less, after all.
Anyways, kupang and dam are something I haven't considered before, and I forgot about the Mexican pesos. I think I'll try looking for them. Also I noticed gold francs from Napoleon III's reign are rather common and often not too expensive? It seems to largely depend on luck, at least on eBay and such.
Since it looks like low-grade gold coins aren't very common (because gold doesn't wear down like silver or other metals?), I suppose ex-mount/jewelry ones are better candidates. Not holding my breath, though.
I think I'll try to get a 2 Shu Kin first, considering it's inexpensive (hopefully around 3,000 yen) and 150+ years old!Plus, the gold content may be low but the rest (70-80%?) is silver so I guess that makes it electrum!
I feel like listing titles with “very rare” (along with “scarce”) aren’t very rare...yikes.
I sometimes see 1/4 Zeri Mahbub at around $40-50, often going up in the last hour or two. I suppose that’s an okay price? I usually don’t bid on them because I can’t be sure if they are genuine pieces or gold-plated imitations (I’m such a sceptic, I know)...
Anyways, I got my 2 Shu! I found it at about 6,500 yen (57 USD) on Rakuten, but luckily I had 4,000 points to use so you could say it was around $20.
Just for general information the 1/4 "zeri mahbubs" or KM605 and 608 are actually 1/4 altins. The weight is too much for it to be a zeri mahbub. (4x.8=3.2 grams vs a zeri mahbub that weighs 2.5 grams)
I think $50 is still a good price, I bought one recently for ~$80. There are a lot of holed one for sale, I wouldn’t pay more than $30 for them.
Do you think 10% over spot is a good premium? My local coin shop had a few early 20th century gold coins in a few months back. A couple of French 20 francs (I think these might be later restrikes), two Belgian 20 francs from 1914, and a few later bullion coins like an Elizabeth II sovereign.
Quote: "Jesse11"Do you think 10% over spot is a good premium? My local coin shop had a few early 20th century gold coins in a few months back. A couple of French 20 francs (I think these might be later restrikes), two Belgian 20 francs from 1914, and a few later bullion coins like an Elizabeth II sovereign.
10% is average, you might be able to get less in an auction house, but then you would have to pay shipping charges that might put it over.
The french did restrike their later roosters (I think 1905 or 6 and later, but don’t quote me). The restrikes can be distinguished by color, but I’d just buy the earlier dates just to make sure.
