Krugerrand 1/4 oz or Maple Leaf 1/4 oz: which is the better buy today?
Krugerrand 1/4 oz and Maple Leaf 1/4 oz hold the same gold — 7.78 g of fine metal each — and differ in everything else: Krugerrand 1/4 oz is struck in 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt by South African Mint, Maple Leaf 1/4 oz in 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt by Royal Canadian Mint. With the metal identical, the only thing left to compare is what each dealer charges above it.
| coin | Krugerrand 1/4 oz | Maple Leaf 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 | 22.06 mm | 20 mm |
| thickness | 1.89 mm | 1.78 mm |
| face value | no denomination | 10 dollars |
| struck | South Africa · since 1980 | Canada · since 1982 |
The prices come from the feed, and the feed has not answered yet.
Krugerrand 1/4 oz — A quarter ounce of gold in a 22 mm coin — about the size of a Sovereign, and bought for the same reason: a piece small enough to sell one at a time.
Maple Leaf 1/4 oz — The quarter ounce, 20 mm of 999.9 gold with the ten-dollar face value — the size the Mint added first, in 1982, when the ounce turned out to be too big a bite for many buyers.
Krugerrand 1/4 oz is 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt, so it weighs 8.48 g for its 7.78 g of gold; Maple Leaf 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 Krugerrand 1/4 oz can be handled and Maple Leaf 1/4 oz travels in a capsule.
Both are modern bullion coins, struck for investors — Krugerrand 1/4 oz since 1980, Maple Leaf 1/4 oz since 1982 — 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.