Gold Index Page

Contents
Main Page
Philharmonicas
Philharmonicas For Sale
Krugerrands
Krugerrand Information
Krugerrands For Sale
Sovereigns
Sovereign Information Sovereigns For Sale
Year 2000 Sovereigns
Gold Bars
Bars Information
Bars For Sale
Half Sovereigns
Half Sovereign Information
Half Sovereigns For Sale
Year 2000 Half Sovereigns
Buying
We Buy Gold Coins
About Us
About Us
Our Selling Terms
Order Form UK
Order Form USA

Government Wealth Warning on Modern Gold Coins?
We think there should be a Government Wealth Warning on modern coin issues including gold coins.

Modern Issues
In the absence of any Government Wealth Warning, we will issue our own via this page.
While we would not wish to stop any collectors or other interested parties from buying new coin issues "modern issues", we would advise all and sundry to only do so if they are something you really want, and in particular, do not buy them as an investment.

Marketing & Production Costs
All new products incur design and production costs, and these need to be passed on to the buyers. Also, there are often substantial marketing costs involved, and again these are mainly borne by the buyers.
Because we are dealers, and not just sales or marketing people, a large part of our business is making a market (buying and selling) in older coins. In recent years, we have seen increasing quantities of second-hand "modern issues". We pride ourselves that we provide quite an efficient market, with relatively small margins between buying and selling prices. What often upsets and frustrates us is the high prices which people have often paid for the modern issue coins they are selling. Many of these have come from the Royal Mint, Westminster Collections, London Mint Office, and others. In most cases, we could and would have sold the same coins originally at lower prices than these competitors charged, but of course this would have required the original buyers to have shopped around a little, or applied a little caution or common-sense before spending their money.
In many cases, these coin owners bought their collection thinking they would be a good investment, Again, we could and would have warned them.

Historic Coin Collections
If we think that "new" coin issues are overpriced, the prices charged by these marketing companies for "historic" coins is often astonishingly high. We will restrict ourselves to the opinion that many new issues and also mint re-issues represent poor value...

Save Over £500!*
The Royal Mint, not content with its monopoly in producing new sovereigns, has for some years now been buying mintmark sets of sovereigns from the numismatic trade, and marketing them to its "Coin Club" members (customers) at poor value* prices. Sadly because most of its customers are not coin collectors, but ordinary members of the public who, for some reason, appear to trust the Royal Mint.
As we wrote this, the Royal Mint's latest price on its George V mintmark collection was £1,245! We should point out, in mitigation, that the Mint's collection does come in a quite impressive wooden box, with each coin in its own capsule, and with an informative booklet / certificate. At a pinch, the presentation might be worth as much as £50, but on the negative side, the quality of some of their coins is rather variable. We have the advantage of having seen a number of the Royal Mint's sets, so we know their typical grades. Some of their coins would not even make it into our lowest grade / price. Otherwise their sets are closest to our lowest graded set.
Even our most expensive set is (was) £350 less than the Royal Mint's offering. Perhaps we should have increased our prices, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to charging poor value* prices.

Examples
There are many other examples we could quote of Royal Mint pricing being, in our opinion, very high. There are a selection on our Gold Sovereigns website.

Advice & Information
Our website is not just a sales catalogue. We try to make it as informative as possible, with unbiased impartial advice, information, opinions, news, and facts about gold coins, gold bars, and investment gold.

*Relevant Dates & Other Information
Our "Save Over £500!" heading is taken from a page of our Gold Sovereigns website, and originated in or around 2000.
As it is no longer a simple matter for us to determine our original publication date. In an effort to ensure that our comments remain historically accurate and fair, we note the following, and will add any more data as it becomes available:

  • The back cover of the Royal Mint's certificate states "Crown Copyright 2000".
  • The certificate states "This collection comprises seven sovereigns of George V..."
  • Our mintmark sets are all of George V sovereigns, so they are directly comparable with the Royal Mint's sets.
  • All price comparisons were correct at the time of writing.
  • The Royal Mint may not be offering any similar sets currently.

Royal Mint Historic Sovereign Collection Certificate
Royal Mint Historic Sovereign Collection Certificate

Royal Mint Sovereign Mintmark Collection
Royal Mint Sovereign Mintmark Collection

Advice

 


"Tax Free Gold" website is owned and operated by Chard (1964) Limited
32 - 36 Harrowside, Blackpool, Lancashire, FY4 1RJ, England. Telephone (44) - (0) 1253 - 343081; Fax 408058;
E-mail: Contact Us  The URL for our main page is: taxfreegold.co.uk

EV SSL Certificate