If you have inherited or received gold coins as a gift, you might be in the situation where you do not know how much your gold coin is worth. If that’s the case and you have no knowledge about gold coins, this article is for you.

We do not recommend to use Ebay to determine the value of your coin. In fact, most of the prices are inaccurate and biased. Follow our guideline to determine accurately how much your gold coin is worth.

Understand the different types of gold coins.

Before to deep-dive into calculating the value of your gold coins, it is important to first understand that it exists two different types of gold coins :

• Bullion coins: produced (or have been produced) in large quantities. They are really common in the market.

• Rare gold coins: fit into the field of numismatic (the study or collection of currency). Their value differ completely to those of gold bullion coins.

What does the price of a gold coin depend on?

For a bullion coin, the price is based on the gold content.

For a numismatic coin, the price is based on catalogues (based on previous auctions, and the demand for this type of rare coins). A rare gold coin is more like a collectible, but the price you can see on a catalogue is merely and indication. You will rarely receive the price displayed in a catalogue, since their value depend on multiple factors (dealer, condition, conservation, demand…). if a rare gold coin is damaged, it will be only worth its metal value.

How to calculate the value of your gold coin?

There are two different ways to value your gold coin(s), depending on if its a bullion or rare coin.

Step 1: Determine if it’s a bullion or rare coin

Look online for your coin, like in the website of a bullion dealer. If you find your coin for sale on a bullion dealer website, then you are holding a bullion coin.

Generally, the inscriptions on both side of the coin will give you some hint to research. Look for the portrait and the legend.

To make your life easier, we have made a listing of some popular gold bullion coins, and some example of rare gold coins.

Step 2: Find the gold spot price

Simply look on Google for the “live gold price” or “gold spot price” to know the current price of gold. You can also look at the top of our website or in our dedicated page to see the price and the history.

Step 3: Find the gold weight of your gold coin.

The gold weight corresponds of how many grams of gold your coin contains. This is because some coins are not entirely pure (900 / 1000, 22 carats), while other are made only of pure gold (24 carats). The figure below explain the difference:

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Step 4: Calculate the value of your gold coin

You now have all the elements to calculate the value of your gold coin. Here are the final step. We will take the example of a gold sovereign to calculate its bullion value.

This will give you a good indication of what you should receive. However, note that any bullion dealer will take a commission (of few %) out of price.

Additional advices

For rare gold coins, look at Numismatic catalogues

Here is a list of some catalogue that you can look for as a reference :

• Blue or Red Book (for American coins)
• Gadoury (Red Book for French coins)
• Spink – Coins of England and United Kingdom (for british coins)
• Standard Catalogue of Gold Coins (list all countries)

Shop around

Although you might have find and calculated the value of your gold coin, it might not be necessarily its value if its a fake or counterfeit coin. Visit a bullion dealer who will be able to tell you if your coin is genuine or not. Those like Gerrards have experience to detect fake gold coins and use X-Ray spectrometer to analyse the metal content of your coin (if its the correct gold purity or if it’s plated gold made with another metal).

Finally, compared the different prices proposed by dealers. Look online for brokers and dealers and call them to ask for a quote.

This is especially the case with rare collectible gold coins. If you know the company you got the coin from (if you bough it yourself), call them and ask for more informations.