Britannia 1 oz or Gold bar 1 oz: which is the better buy today?
Gold bar 1 oz and Britannia 1 oz hold the same gold — 31.10 g of fine metal — and are two different objects: Britannia 1 oz is a coin, struck in 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt by The Royal Mint with a face value and a legal tender, Gold bar 1 oz is 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt gold poured or pressed by a refinery, with a weight and a serial on the stamp. Nothing is paid for striking money on the bar, and it usually shows in the premium; the coin pays it back when it is sold.
| coin | Britannia 1 oz | Gold bar 1 oz |
|---|---|---|
| fine gold | 31.10 g | 31.10 g |
| gross weight | 31.10 g | 31.10 g |
| purity | 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt | 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt |
| length × width | 32.69 mm | 41.1 × 24.1 mm |
| thickness | 2.79 mm | 1.63 mm |
| face value | 100 pounds | none — a bar is not money |
| struck | United Kingdom · since 1987 | LBMA Good Delivery |
The prices come from the feed, and the feed has not answered yet.
Britannia 1 oz — Struck in 999.9 gold since 2013 — earlier ones are 22 carat. Legal tender in the United Kingdom, which is what exempts it from capital gains tax there.
Gold bar 1 oz — The troy ounce as a bar: the same gold as a Krugerrand or a Maple Leaf, cast or minted by a refinery rather than struck by a mint, and usually a little cheaper over the metal for it.
Britannia 1 oz is a coin, struck in 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt by The Royal Mint, with a face value and a legal tender it will never be spent at: it is known by sight at any counter in the world, and sells one piece at a time. Gold bar 1 oz is 999.9 gold cast or minted by a refinery on the LBMA list, with the weight and a serial on the stamp, and is known by the card and the assay it comes with.
Nothing is paid for striking money on a bar, so a bar usually asks a little less over the metal than the coin of the same gold; the coin pays it back when it is sold, because it sells more easily, and in some countries — the Britannia in the United Kingdom — it is free of capital gains tax where the bar is not. In the European Union both are investment gold, sold without VAT: the tax never decides between them.
So the comparison is the premium. Whichever of the two a dealer asks less for above its metal is the cheaper gold that day — and that changes shop by shop and day by day, which is what the numbers above are for.