1986-W SOL

Draco

Anyone know that the Gold content of this coin is? I recently picked up two of them and they are much larger than I expected for $5 gold coins (about the same size as a nickle).

Thanks

Cameo CC

My understanding is that there is 1/4 oz of gold and the $10 Gold Commemoratives there is 1/2 oz.

Todd

Draco

Well, all the other modern gold coins I have are 1/10th ounce in the $5 dollar variety and are about 90% gold. The $5 gold eagle is a much smaller coin then these SOLs are. I surmise that if the SOL is 1/10 ounce, then the percentage is much, much lower. Something like 65%-70% gold.

Edited: Anyone know why the mint chooses to make them 91.6% gold instead of 100%? Because of the price of gold, they were never intended for circulation so why make them from an gold/copper/silver alloy? If I did collect modern gold, I'd proably put my money in Austrailia or Canada for that reason.

TWQG

Same dimensions and content as the gold liberty half eagles. Without my redbook, I think it's 0.242 oz.

Cameo CC

This is from the www.usmint.gov web site:

Gold five-dollar; 90% gold and 10% alloy, diameter is 0.850 (±0.003) inch or 21.59 (±0.08) mm and the weight is 8.359 (±0.42) grams.

Here is the link:

$5 Gold Commemorative

Todd

Conder101

The commemorative five dollar gold pieces are made to the same standards as the last circulating five dollar gold pieces. 900 fine and just under a quarter ounce of gold.

The bullion pieces work under a different theory. The one oz gold piece was given a face value of fifty dollars, the half oz has a face value of half as much or $25 and the tenth oz has a face of one tenth as much or $5. The quarter oz is the odd one. Proportionally it should have a face value of $12.50 but we have never made a coin of that denomination so they rounded it off to the closest standard denomination and it became a $10 piece.

The reason they were made 916 fine is because when they were authorized they were intended to compete with and replace the most popular bullion coin of the time which was the Kruggerand. The "Krand" was 22 karat gold (which was the standard alloy for many gold coins from the turn of the century to that time.) or 916 fine. It wasn't until a little later that the standard for most bullion coins switched to 999 fine.

Draco

Thanks for the info !