We also think that many Indian and Asian countries prefer fine gold so we assume that The Royal Mint have altered the fineness to appeal to worldwide markets.
The purity of both the silver and gold Britannias appears to have affected the quality and relief of the coins. We believe that some chocolate coins have a higher releif than the 2013 gold Britannia and many people at The World Money Fair in Berlin agreed with us.
The silver coins are significantly worse than the gold coins, so much so that we written a blog post on them, but we still feel that the relief on the gold coin is worth mentioning. The images on the right show the touched up image on top followed by the untouched original image.
You can also see images showing the difference in relief between the 2012 Britannia and the 2013 Britannia.
What we find stranger is that the purity of the silver Britannia is now 0.999 as opposed to 0.958 Britannia silver - surely it is no longer a true Britannia? You can read more about this on our original site - www.24carat.co.uk
Britannias have - for as long as we can remember - been issued in sheets. The gold Britannias have come in 'sensible' sheets* of five that we have had to cut to provide customers with the correct amount of coins, these sheets then protect the coins keeping them fairly close to uncirculated. They are now being packed in tubes, with ten coins in a tube and twenty five tubes in a box so unless you order in multiples of 10 you will now receive them in a small re-sealable bag. We do sell capsules for an additional 50 pence if you would like to protect your coin.
We imagine - pure speculation at this point - that The Royal Mint will then produce an uncirculated coin (in addition to this bullion version) that they will sell at a higher premium, perhaps in fancy packaging that we doubt will justify the extra cost!
Half Ounce
Quarter Ounce
Tenth Ounce