Maple Leaf 1/10 oz or American Eagle 1/10 oz: which is the better buy today?
Maple Leaf 1/10 oz and American Eagle 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, American Eagle 1/10 oz in 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt by United States Mint. With the metal identical, the only thing left to compare is what each dealer charges above it.
| coin | Maple Leaf 1/10 oz | American Eagle 1/10 oz |
|---|---|---|
| fine gold | 3.11 g | 3.11 g |
| gross weight | 3.11 g | 3.39 g |
| purity | 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt | 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt |
| diameter | 16 mm | 16.5 mm |
| thickness | 1.22 mm | 1.19 mm |
| face value | 5 dollars | 5 dollars |
| struck | Canada · since 1982 | United States · since 1986 |
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.
American Eagle 1/10 oz — The most minted of the small American coins: 3.11 g of gold in a 16.5 mm 22 carat disc, with a five-dollar face value and the highest premium in the family.
American Eagle 1/10 oz is 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt, so it weighs 3.39 g for its 3.11 g of gold; Maple Leaf 1/10 oz is 999.9 ‰ · 24 kt, 3.11 g on the scale. Neither holds more gold for the difference: the alloy is hardness, which is why American Eagle 1/10 oz can be handled and Maple Leaf 1/10 oz travels in a capsule.
Both are modern bullion coins, struck for investors — Maple Leaf 1/10 oz since 1982, American Eagle 1/10 oz since 1986 — 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.