coin guide

Types of Gold Coins

The main types of gold coins are modern bullion coins such as the American Gold Eagle, proof and other collector versions of those same designs, and historic coins such as pre-1933 U.S. gold. A bullion coin trades at a slight premium to the value of its gold. A pre-1933 coin is 90% gold and is priced on date, mint and grade as well as metal. U.S. regulators sort all of them into two categories: bullion and numismatic.

Two Categories in Regulation, Three Types in Practice

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) divides physical metal into two categories. Bullion, in the agency's wording, is coins or bars of a specific weight and purity. Numismatic or collectible coins are rare or old coins, or special proofs newly minted as collectibles. Numismatic is the trade's word for collectible.

Three working types sit inside those categories. Modern bullion gold coins are the first: PCGS defines a bullion coin as a legal tender coin that trades at a slight premium to its melt value, melt being the value of its metal. Proofs and pre-1933 coins both land on the numismatic side, one because it's new and made for collectors, the other because it's old.

You'll also hear "semi-numismatic," which the CFTC and FINRA call "a made-up industry term" with no special meaning. Ask which real category the price is based on.

Modern Bullion Coins: 22-Karat and 24-Karat Issues

Modern bullion coins are struck by government mints to a stated weight of fine gold. The South African Mint struck the first Krugerrand on July 3, 1967, and five other major series followed between 1979 and 2006.

For the Britannia, 1987 comes from The Royal Mint's own count: it marks four decades of its flagship bullion coin in 2027. "None" for the Krugerrand isn't a gap, because the South African Mint says Krugerrands are legal tender but have no face value. Australia's gold Kangaroo, from The Perth Mint, belongs to the same family at 99.99% purity with a face value of 100 Australian dollars. Whatever a world coin says on its face, foreign gold coins aren't legal tender for debts in the United States.

Karat splits the family, but a 22-karat coin isn't short on gold. The alloy is added on top, which is why federal law sets 1 oz American Gold Eagles at 33.931 grams containing one troy ounce of fine gold. That statute is looser on Gold Buffalo coins: it sets a weight of 1 ounce and 99.99% purity, and leaves size and thickness to the Treasury Secretary.

The Gold Eagle's obverse is much older than the coin. Its Liberty is the figure Augustus Saint-Gaudens created for the double eagle series that began in 1907, which ties the modern bullion coin to the pre-1933 series it borrows from.

Fractional Sizes

Most of these series also come in fractions of an ounce, which the trade calls fractional gold. Gold Eagle fractions are written into the statute: 1/2 oz with a $25 face value, 1/4 oz at $10 and 1/10 oz at $5. The Royal Canadian Mint goes down to a 1/20 oz Maple Leaf and the Austrian Mint to a 1/25 oz Philharmonic. Krugerrand fractions were added in 1980.

Proof Coins and Graded Coins

A proof is a method of manufacture, not a separate design. PCGS describes the process: both the dies and the blank, called a planchet, are specially prepared, the press usually runs slower and at higher pressure, and each coin usually takes more than one blow. That extra care is why proof coins show much sharper detail than a regular strike of the same design.

Mirror fields come from polished dies, and PCGS notes that matte, Roman and satin proofs don't have them, so read the label before you trust the shine. A bullion Gold Eagle and a proof Gold Eagle share a design, but the CFTC places special proofs newly minted as collectibles in the numismatic category.

Any coin, bullion or historic, can also be graded. NGC grades on the Sheldon scale of 1 to 70, with 60 as the threshold for Uncirculated, and labels coins struck for circulation MS, for Mint State, and proofs PF. In PCGS terms, MS-60 is a coin covered with marks and MS-70 is flawless. Graded coins are sealed in a holder that carries the grade. Not every coin gets a number. NGC lists improper cleaning among the most common reasons a coin receives a Details grade in place of one, so never clean an old gold coin.

A holder's guarantee has limits. PCGS pays current market value if a coin it graded proves non-authentic, but not once the coin has been removed from the holder or the holder shows tampering. Every PCGS holder made since October 2020 includes an NFC chip, so check the certificate with a phone before you rely on the plastic.

Pre-1933 U.S. Gold Coins: Four Denominations in 90% Gold

Pre-1933 gold coins are the gold coins the United States struck as money. Those that trade most often come in four denominations: the $20 double eagle, the $10 eagle, the $5 half eagle and the $2.50 quarter eagle. All of them are 90% gold and 10% copper. PCGS supplies the figures below.

None of these coins holds a round fraction of an ounce, so work the gold out from weight and fineness. PCGS rounds the double eagle to 33.40 grams. The mint specification, as NGC gives it, is 33.43 grams. Take 90% of 33.43 grams and you get 30.087 grams of gold. Divide that by 31.1034768 grams, the weight of one troy ounce, and a $20 double eagle holds 0.967 troy ounce of gold.

Edges separate the types faster than portraits do. In the PCGS listings, Saint-Gaudens double eagles have a lettered edge where the Liberty Head $20 is reeded, and the Indian Head $10 has raised stars. Indian Head gold coins come from two artists: Saint-Gaudens for the $10, Bela Lyon Pratt for the $5 and $2.50.

Date and variety carry the collector side of the price. NGC dates the Liberty Head $20 series from 1849 to 1907, the year the Saint-Gaudens design took over. In that first year a little over 12,000 were reportedly struck in high relief with the date in Roman numerals, then about 361,000 more in lower relief with Arabic numerals.

An old coin isn't automatically a rare one. NGC says the 1904 half eagle, with a mintage of 392,000, carries little numismatic premium in most grades. Look up the date and mint mark before you decide which type you're holding.

Why 1933 Is the Dividing Line

The year in the name comes from law, not design. In March 1933 the Emergency Banking Act gave the Treasury Secretary the power to compel surrender of gold coins and certificates. Executive Order 6102, dated April 5, 1933, required people to deliver gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve system by May 1, 1933.

That order carried exceptions that matter to collectors. It exempted gold coin and gold certificates up to $100 per person, along with "gold coins having a recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins."

The Gold Reserve Act, signed on January 30, 1934, completed the change. It transferred all monetary gold to the Treasury at $35 per ounce, up from $20.67, and required monetary gold to be held as bars. Coins were forbidden. Modern U.S. gold such as the Gold Eagle, first issued in 1986, sits on the other side of that line as bullion.

Commemorative Gold and Historic World Coins

PCGS counts 11 classic U.S. gold commemoratives struck from 1903 until 1925, plus the modern U.S. commemorative gold issues.

Britain's sovereign bridges the types. The Royal Mint lists it at 22.05 mm across, with 0.235 troy ounce of gold in a 22-karat alloy, a standard the mint traces to 1526. Gold sovereigns struck today are bullion coins, and older dates trade as historic coins.

Historic gold is also counterfeited in real gold. Examples from the Deutsche Bundesbank of counterfeits struck in gold include the German 20 mark, the Swiss 20 franc Vreneli and the sovereign. NGC has examined a fake 1904 half eagle with weight and metal content inside U.S. Mint tolerances, so a scale alone won't clear a collectible coin.

What Sets the Price of Each Type

A bullion coin's price starts with arithmetic. The CFTC and FINRA define the spot price as the cash price for immediate delivery of physical metal, quoted in dollars per troy ounce. Multiply spot by the coin's fine gold weight, then add the premium, which is the amount charged over spot.

A proof or a graded coin adds finish, mintage and grade, which arithmetic can't settle. A pre-1933 coin has both layers: a gold content you can calculate, and a date, mint and grade judged coin by coin. In a 2020 advisory, the CFTC cautions that numismatic coins can be difficult to value objectively and that the market for proofs or rare coins isn't very liquid.

Bullion coins are collected too, so the boundary moves. PCGS points to the American Silver Eagle, a bullion coin that has sold more than 600 million pieces since its 1986 debut and is also a collector series.

Matching a Type of Gold Coin to Your Goals

Start with what you want the coin to do. If the aim is gold by weight, the tests are how far the price sits above the coin's gold content and what you'd receive on selling it. If the aim is collecting, the tests are date, design and grade, and price becomes judgment more than arithmetic.

A retirement account narrows the field by law. 26 U.S.C. 408(m) treats any coin as a collectible that an IRA can't buy, then excepts the Gold Eagles by naming their paragraphs of the coinage law, which is why a 22-karat coin qualifies. Other gold must meet the fineness a futures contract market requires, and collectible coins generally don't qualify. IRA-eligible gold must also sit with a bank or an IRS-approved nonbank trustee, not at home.

Tax doesn't sort the types the way price does. Coins are one of the examples the IRS gives of a collectible, and it applies a maximum 28% rate to net capital gains from selling collectibles.

We're not a registered investment advisor and can't give individual investment or tax advice, so speak with a tax professional or financial advisor.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the two types of gold coins?

Bullion and numismatic, which are the CFTC's categories for physical metal. Harder cases follow from the agency's wording. A proof Gold Eagle is numismatic even though it's new, and a pre-1933 double eagle is numismatic even when its date is a common one.

What are some common names for gold coins?

U.S. gold denominations have their own names. The $10 coin is an eagle, the $20 a double eagle, the $5 a half eagle and the $2.50 a quarter eagle. Don't confuse the $10 eagle with the American Gold Eagle, the modern bullion coin whose 1 oz size carries a $50 face value. World coins go by sovereign, Krugerrand and Maple Leaf.

What are the best gold coins to buy?

No single coin suits every buyer, and we can't tell you which to buy. Weigh which category sets the coin's price, how much you'd pay over its gold content and whether it needs to qualify for an IRA. The CFTC and FINRA also suggest asking how much you'd receive if you had to sell the metal back tomorrow.

Gold Coins on Our Two-Way Market

Our platform is a two-way market: you can buy and sell on it, and the bid, the price to sell, is visible before you buy. That lets you compare what a coin costs with what it sells for, whichever type it is. We verify every item with modern testing equipment and numismatic expertise.