Maple Leaf 1/10 oz or Britannia 1/10 oz: which is the better buy today?
Maple Leaf 1/10 oz and Britannia 1/10 oz hold the same gold — 3.11 g of fine metal each — and differ in everything else: Maple Leaf 1/10 oz is struck in 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt by Royal Canadian Mint, Britannia 1/10 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 | Maple Leaf 1/10 oz | Britannia 1/10 oz |
|---|---|---|
| fine gold | 3.11 g | 3.11 g |
| gross weight | 3.11 g | 3.11 g |
| purity | 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt | 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt |
| diameter | 16 mm | 16.5 mm |
| thickness | 1.22 mm | 1.20 mm |
| face value | 5 dollars | 10 pounds |
| struck | Canada · since 1982 | United Kingdom · since 1987 |
The prices come from the feed, and the feed has not answered yet.
Maple Leaf 1/10 oz — A tenth of an ounce of pure gold at 16 mm: the maple leaf is still there, legible, on a coin that weighs about as much as a paperclip.
Britannia 1/10 oz — A tenth of an ounce of pure gold at 16.5 mm, ten pounds on its face. The smallest coin in the family, and the one the Mint sells most of to first-time buyers.
Both are struck in 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt: the same alloy, the same feel in the hand, and any difference on the scale is a difference in gold.
Both are modern bullion coins, struck for investors — Maple Leaf 1/10 oz since 1982, Britannia 1/10 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.