Marengo 20 Lire or American Eagle 1 oz: which is the better buy today?

Marengo 20 Lire holds 5.81 g of fine gold and American Eagle 1 oz 31.10 g: American Eagle 1 oz holds 5.36 times the gold of Marengo 20 Lire. The metal costs the same per gram in both; what differs is how much of the price is the coin rather than the gold — and the small one always carries more of it.

Marengo 20 Lire — The Italian 20 lire of the Latin Monetary Union — the same 5.81 g of gold as a Napoléon or a Vreneli, which is why the three trade together.

American Eagle 1 oz — One ounce of gold in a 22 carat alloy, so it weighs more than an ounce on the scale. The most traded bullion coin in the United States.

Both are alloyed — Marengo 20 Lire at 900 ‰ · 21.6 kt, American Eagle 1 oz at 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt — hard enough to be handled without ceremony; the difference on the scale is alloy, not gold, and the fine gold weight beside it is the only one that counts.

Marengo 20 Lire was money before it was an investment — struck from 1861 to 1897 — and is bought today as a bullion coin on the strength of being recognised everywhere; American Eagle 1 oz has been struck for investors since 1986, and its price is the metal plus the mint’s and the dealer’s margin, nothing else.

What decides between them is not the gold, which costs the same per gram in both, but everything charged per coin: striking, distribution, the shop’s margin. Spread over 5.81 g the small coin carries far more of it per gram than the big one does over 31.10 g — which is why Marengo 20 Lire is nearly always the dearer gold, and why it is bought anyway: it sells in smaller pieces, and sells everywhere.