American Eagle 1/4 oz or Britannia 1/4 oz: which is the better buy today?
American Eagle 1/4 oz and Britannia 1/4 oz hold the same gold — 7.78 g of fine metal each — and differ in everything else: American Eagle 1/4 oz is struck in 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt by United States Mint, Britannia 1/4 oz in 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt by The Royal Mint. With the metal identical, the only thing left to compare is what each dealer charges above it.
| coin | American Eagle 1/4 oz | Britannia 1/4 oz |
|---|---|---|
| fine gold | 7.78 g | 7.78 g |
| gross weight | 8.48 g | 7.78 g |
| purity | 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt | 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt |
| diameter | 22 mm | 22 mm |
| thickness | 1.83 mm | 1.63 mm |
| face value | 10 dollars | 25 pounds |
| struck | United States · since 1986 | United Kingdom · since 1987 |
The prices come from the feed, and the feed has not answered yet.
American Eagle 1/4 oz — The quarter-ounce Eagle: 22 mm, ten dollars on its face, Saint-Gaudens’ Liberty on the obverse like every size of the family.
Britannia 1/4 oz — The quarter-ounce Britannia: 22 mm of pure gold with the twenty-five-pound face value, and the same trident, in a coin about the size of a Sovereign that holds a little more gold than one.
American Eagle 1/4 oz is 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt, so it weighs 8.48 g for its 7.78 g of gold; Britannia 1/4 oz is 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt, 7.78 g on the scale. Neither holds more gold for the difference: the alloy is hardness, which is why American Eagle 1/4 oz can be handled and Britannia 1/4 oz travels in a capsule.
Both are modern bullion coins, struck for investors — American Eagle 1/4 oz since 1986, Britannia 1/4 oz since 1987 — and priced on their metal and the margins above it.
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.