Small Gold Coins
In recent years, a number of coin marketers have promoted "collections" of very small lightweight gold coins, some even proudly proclaiming them as "The World's Smallest Gold Coins". We could see the attraction in collecting large or very large gold coins, but not very small ones. It's a little like exhorting people to catch Ebola rather than the "Common Cold"!The only real attraction we can see is that for the producers and vendors, it's one way of getting a large profit margin, selling a small amount of gold for a large amount of money. Impecunious buyers would be better advised to save up and buy a proper coin rather than waste their money on overpriced tiny ones, produced solely for the purpose of parting gullible punters from their money.
We would have thought the Royal Mint had a sufficient monopoly on making money that it would not need to stoop as low as flogging this sort of crap, and could safely leave it to Westminster Collections instead.

Artistic Merit It must be quite a challenge for an engraver to fit very large objects such as Moby Dick, an elephant, or The Titanic onto something as minuscule as these coins. The amount of detail is necessarily lower than on larger coins. Come to think of it, but our photographer has done a great job of making these coins look so good!

Technical Specifications

Notes
Denomination = Face Value
Diameter = Approximate Diameter in millimetres.
Weight = Stated gross weight in grams.
Alloy = Fineness of gold.
AGW = Gold Content = Actual fine gold weight in troy ounces.

Issue Prices & Value
We do not know at what price the Royal Mint originally set this set, however while we were creating this page, we noticed Westminster Collections, one of the Royal Mint's biggest UK customers offering a similarly specified Guernsey coin at £59.99 each, plus postage of £2.99 each.
At this sort of purchase price new, the value of any "investment" could only go the same way as the Titanic.
Part of our raison d'etre is to make a secondary market in coins of all descriptions. Many of the coins in this "collection" are reasonably attractive, and some are from countries which produce very few gold coins. They therefore represent a source of collectable material. At our asking price, we do not consider these coins cheap, but they certainly represent much better relative value than when they were bought new.

Collection?
Although the information cards are headed "The Precious Gold Collection", it would appear to us that the word collection is a bit of marketing speak. Apart from the fact that most of the coins are .999 gold, and they are all small, there appears to be very little in common between them. At least one of the coins is .9999 gold rather than .999 fine, three of the coins have a different diameter, four of the coins have a different intrinsic gold content. The coin dates range from 1994 to 2003, a nine or ten year span. Even if the coins in the "Collection" were delivered at monthly intervals, it would only require a two year period, and possibly three different minting years.
Our guess is that the "The Precious Fine Gold Collection" is purely the invention of some marketing person dreamt up as a way of flogging a diverse melange of minge, or getting rid of some old stock.

Prices & Availability
Please contact us prior to ordering for current prices and availability.

Postage & Packing
UK Registered Post (Special Delivery) £9 per order
EU Insured Post £10 per order
USA Airmail $10 per order
USA Insured Shipping $20 per order

Niue Silver and Base Metal Coins
For silver and base metal coins of Niue, please look at our original Chard Coins website.