Is there a quick way for a layman to know if a gold coin is genuine?

[Patty_O_Furniture]

You mean the Lady Liberty coin we’re all discussing? If only there was some clue…

[UltraVires]

@quangdog

and most pawn shops will offer you “spot” (the current trading value of 1 troy ounce of gold) or very close to it for gold. As I write this, gold spot is at $1625.8 - so a quarter ounce round is worth $406.45 just in the gold.

Cite? I took a piece of gold to a local pawn shop and they were offering 15% of spot. I told them to go to hell and ended up looking online. Most places were offering 60-70% of spot, and I went with Empire Gold who offers 80% spot for less than an ounce and 90% spot for anything above that.

If a pawn shop paid spot, how would they make any money off of it?

[Polycarp]

@Chefguy

Nonsense.

Also, that’s not a coin, it’s a round made of gold. A dealer would have to be familiar with who minted it and perform some tests to verify its purity.

This is a worthwhile point for the investor. A coin is an item of legal tender. In times past it contained approximately its face value of precious metal (silver, gold, bronze) - but the key point is that it is issued by a government as a constituent of its currency policy. It could in theory be made of plastic or tinsel – its value comes from the government warranting it to be legal tender to the face value it bears.

A *token *is a private issue brought into existence in times of coin shortages to function in lieu of legal tender coinage during the shortage. Anything from a wooden nickel to the Moffat Bros. $50 gold ‘coins’ falls into this category.

A round is a unit of bullion, nearly always in a precious metal, designed to look like a coin. The advantages are that it is more attractive than an ingot and is of a weight warranted by whatever business struck it, enabling consistent valuation. But its value is not as currency but as a measured quantity of precious metal, i.e., bullion.

Private businesses like the Franklin Mint and Overstock Bullion issue bullion in rounds because investors like them. So do the U.S., Canadian, and South African mints – the American Eagle and Maple Leaf bullion rounds are examples of the latter. Unlike most such businesses, the Franklin Mint does issue coins, in behalf of small national governments who team with its minting and marketing clout for mutual benefit.

[JBDivmstr]

@Polycarp

This is a worthwhile point for the investor. A coin is an item of legal tender. In times past it contained approximately its face value of precious metal (silver, gold, bronze) - but the key point is that it is issued by a government as a constituent of its currency policy. It could in theory be made of plastic or tinsel – its value comes from the government warranting it to be legal tender to the face value it bears.

A *token *is a private issue brought into existence in times of coin shortages to function in lieu of legal tender coinage during the shortage. Anything from a wooden nickel to the Moffat Bros. $50 gold ‘coins’ falls into this category.

A round is a unit of bullion, nearly always in a precious metal, designed to look like a coin. The advantages are that it is more attractive than an ingot and is of a weight warranted by whatever business struck it, enabling consistent valuation. But its value is not as currency but as a measured quantity of precious metal, i.e., bullion.

Private businesses like the Franklin Mint and Overstock Bullion issue bullion in rounds because investors like them. So do the U.S., Canadian, and South African mints – the American Eagle and Maple Leaf bullion rounds are examples of the latter. Unlike most such businesses, the Franklin Mint does issue coins, in behalf of small national governments who team with its minting and marketing clout for mutual benefit.

Interesting information. Thanks, Polycarp!

[astro]

Not a coin maven but per the other responses this is functionally equivalent to buying gold bullion and gold is near market record prices and has been falling like a stone recently. It’s a fair deal “today”, but may be a loser investment a month from now. It seems like this would be buying something near the top of the bubble, and at $ 350.00 it’s not that wildly far off new retail pricing per the linked ad.