Sovereign or Half Sovereign: which is the better buy today?
Sovereign holds 7.32 g of fine gold and Half Sovereign 3.66 g: Sovereign holds 2.00 times the gold of Half Sovereign. 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.
| coin | Sovereign | Half Sovereign |
|---|---|---|
| fine gold | 7.32 g | 3.66 g |
| gross weight | 7.99 g | 3.99 g |
| purity | 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt | 916.7 ‰ · 22 kt |
| diameter | 22.05 mm | 19.3 mm |
| thickness | 1.52 mm | 0.99 mm |
| face value | one pound | half a pound |
| struck | United Kingdom · since 1817 | United Kingdom · since 1817 |
The prices come from the feed, and the feed has not answered yet.
Sovereign — The small coin of the European market: struck since 1817, sold and bought everywhere, and hard alloy so it survives being handled.
Half Sovereign — Half the Sovereign in every way but one: the same 22 carat alloy and the same St George, on 3.66 g of gold, and a premium that is not half — a coin costs the same to strike whatever it weighs.
Both are struck in 916.7 ‰ · 22 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 — Sovereign since 1817, Half Sovereign since 1817 — and priced on their metal and the margins above it.
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 3.66 g the small coin carries far more of it per gram than the big one does over 7.32 g — which is why Half Sovereign is nearly always the dearer gold, and why it is bought anyway: it sells in smaller pieces, and sells everywhere.