Foreign gold coins, value, prices
Happy Saint Patrick's Day to everyone. One of the funny Leprechaun quotes goes something like give me my gold shillings or will be many killings. The little fella did value his gold. But shillings and other foreign gold coins are exactly the kind of gold you should not buy. Buying foreign gold is not a good idea except for a few coins that I will mention later. You can hear many commercials pushing foreign coins, but in reality it is simply a very good way for dealers to make quite a few extra bucks off you, just like with non-confiscatable gold. Yes, the gold in foreign coins is as good as in US coins, but there are issues, too crucial to ignore. Mainly of value and prices.
1. Foreign gold coins are often sold at numismatic premium by dealers, and to get it back you will have to sell British Gold Sovereigns, French Gold Roosters, Danish Gold Mermaids and Russian Gold Rubles to buyers in UK, France, Denmark and Russia.
2. Many foreign coins come in strange weights of gold, like .1867 or .2354 troy ounce instead of full troy ounce. They will be stamped with a foreign denomination like 50 Rubles or 25 Franks, but rarely are stamped with their purity or gold content. Try to exchange such coins especially in emergency, for a loaf of bread or a few pounds of meat with the average person or sell them to anybody but a professional. So why the prices you pay are too high, the value of each foreign gold coin is hard to determine in the best case scenario, and in the worst it is rather low, compare with price you pay. If you want to buy fractional-ounce gold coins, stick with American Eagles and Canadian Maple Leafs.
3. The language of the country of the coin origin make things even worse as few average people read French, Danish or Russian and will look suspiciously at foreign gold coins.
4. Even common and popular foreign gold coins like South African Krugerrands and Austrian Philharmonics can present a dilemma for someone who will instead take Gold American Eagle.
5. Australian Lunar Series are beautifully crafted coins showing purity and gold content in plain English, but carry large premium. The first Series that ran from 1995 to 2007 are now sold at huge premium. Perth Mint started new series in 2008 with Rat Gold coin and continued with Ox in 2009. While you can still get those, you are yet better off sticking with American Eagles.
Besides the Australian Lunar Series II, two foreign gold coins that you may well consider are Gold Canadian Maple Leaves and Chinese Gold Pandas, and here is why.
- Canada is just north of the border and many Canadians reside here in States. Besides Gold Maple Leaf has been very popular among many foreign nationals, settling in US, especially among Indian gold buyers who favour this coin for one of the lowest premiums and high purity of at least .9999, which is clearly stated in plain English.
- Chinese Panda is also stamped with its .999 purity and gold content and is very collectible as Mint of China changes design of the coin every year. But main advantage is the large number of Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals living in the US. This creates a very robust market for Gold Pandas.
Now there are huge quantities of recently imported European bullion gold coins minted before 1933. Just like with old U.S. gold coins, these have been promoted as non-confiscatable. To add more appeal they are given nicknames. Here are what you need to stay away from,
- French Twenty Franc, both the Rooster and the Angel
- British Sovereign with the images of Queen Victoria, Edward II or George V
- Swiss Twenty Franc also called Helvetia
- Belgium Twenty Franc known as King Leopold
- Swedish and Danish 10 Kroner or Mermaid
- Swedish and Danish 20 Kroner
- Dutch 10 Guilder
If you are looking to seriously invest in gold, avoid European coins. If you buy them, you are simply enriching dealers, not yourself. Do not be sold on numismatic potential either. You will be hard press to sell foreign gold coins in large quantities anywhere but in the countries of their origin. These coins have been around for a very long time and have always sold at only a few dollars above the value of their gold content. That is why they are heavily promoted. Dealers buys them near bullion prices, mark them heavily up, then sell to ignorant investors at large profits. So leave Leprechaun his gold shillings.
Wed Mar 17, 2010 02:03PM | Copyright: www.bad-credit-advisor.com | More in Gold Investing | Comments (0)
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