American Eagle 1/4 oz or Philharmonic 1/4 oz: which is the better buy today?
American Eagle 1/4 oz and Philharmonic 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, Philharmonic 1/4 oz in 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt by Münze Österreich. With the metal identical, the only thing left to compare is what each dealer charges above it.
| coin | American Eagle 1/4 oz | Philharmonic 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 | 1.20 mm |
| face value | 10 dollars | 25 euro |
| struck | United States · since 1986 | Austria · since 1989 |
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.
Philharmonic 1/4 oz — A quarter ounce of 999.9 gold at 22 mm, with the twenty-five-euro face value. The organ of the Musikverein is on every size, down to this one.
American Eagle 1/4 oz is 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt, so it weighs 8.48 g for its 7.78 g of gold; Philharmonic 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 Philharmonic 1/4 oz travels in a capsule.
Both are modern bullion coins, struck for investors — American Eagle 1/4 oz since 1986, Philharmonic 1/4 oz since 1989 — 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.