You can typically purchase bullion coins for a small premium over the market face value of the precious metal. Bullion coins do not need to be rare or collectible rather, they must have a specific purity or fineness level. For example, rare coins, like the Saint-Gaudens double eagle, hold value because of how rare they are, not because of their exceptionally high metal content. To qualify as a bullion coin, it must meet a specific melt value, which we will cover below.Ĭonversely, numismatic coins obtain their value by being rare. Government-issued bullion coins are the most widely available type you will come across, though you can also buy bullion from private reputable dealers, approved banks, and brokerage firms.īullion coins have intrinsic value due to their precious metal content. What Are Bullion Coins?īullion coins are high-grade, minted precious metal coins typically used for investment.
Below, we discuss bullion, how it compares to numismatic values, how bullion markets work, which popular bullion products you can buy, and more. Understanding how bullion compares to numismatic coins can help you make the right portfolio decisions for your financial goals. Thus, the "gold only" standard allowed for ample currency, and even robust prosperity in the 1920s, so bimetallism died a quiet death.If you’re interested in investing in gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, you’ve likely come across the term “bullion.” Bullion is a blanket term used by precious metals investors, dealers, sellers, government entities, and more. Additionally, the discovery of two immense gold deposits in South Africa substantially increased world gold supply. In the 1890s, scientists discovered a cyanide process that allowed workers to extract pure gold from much lower grade ore, thus significantly increasing domestic gold production. Furthermore, gold did not remain as limited as the advocates of bimetallism imagined. The argument that increasing the money supply would lead to greater prosperity strikes us now as na?ve: of course, we now understand that increasing the monetary supply can lead to runaway inflation, which hurts everyone. He famously expressed this argument in his "Cross of Gold" speech at the 1896 Democratic National Convention, in which he argued that continuing the "gold only" standard would "crucify" the honest laboring classes on a "cross of gold." Despite the eloquence of Bryant's arguments, history strongly favored the "gold-only" standard. Bryant articulated the popular view that a "gold only" standard limited the money supply, and thus favored those who were already quite wealthy, against the interests of working people of all professions. One of the more prominent advocates of bimetallism was William Jennings Bryant: indeed, bimetallism was the very center of his presidential campaigns in 18, both of which he lost to McKinley. Unemployment was high in the depression caused by the Panic of 1893, and many argued that these economic challenges had been triggered by abandoning bimetallism.
#COINAGE ACT OF 1873 FREE#
Early in the United States history, Alexander Hamilton had tried to fix the gold-silver exchange rate by fiat, but of course, such restraints only inhibit the natural development of a free market. The "gold only" advocates, such as William McKinley, argued that shifts in the relative value of the two precious metals could lead to wild fluctuations in the values of currency in a bimetallic system. Over the next several decades, advocates of bimetallism and advocates of the "gold only" standard fiercely debated.
This remained in place for about a century, until the Coinage Act of 1873, which embraced a "gold only" standard, a monometallic standard, effectively dropping silver as the basis of currency. The US Constitution established both gold and silver as the basis of US currency: that is to say, it established a bimetallic standard for currency.
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