The biggest, baddest, gold coin that ever circulated?

Ok so by “circulated” I mean that a coin was minted in large numbers by a sovereign mint intended to be used in day to day commerce.

Thus commemoratives, fantasy coins and bullion coins do not apply. So the $50 gold Panama commems are ineligible.

Having said that I’ve kept my eye out for a while and I haven’t found a coin that contains more gold than the British “quintuple sovereign” or £5 gold coin.



Now I’m sure some of you are asking:

“How much pure gold was in the £5 coin?”

A whopping 1.17 troy ounces! That’s the pure gold content but the coin weighed more due to being 22K crown gold with a copper alloy.

Keep in mind at this time the biggest gold coin in the good ol’ USA was the $20 Double Eagle which “only” contained just shy of 1 troy oz. In other words back then £1 was worth roughly $5. Pretty crazy considering the dollar in those days was a force to be reckoned with.


Has anyone seen a larger gold coin that was actually intended and used for circulation?

 

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What‘s about this one?

 

Is that intended for circulation? I’ve seen those many times but I always thought they were like bullion commems.

 

Let's see a photo of the other side of that coin...

 

Yes, the early years like this one circulated…the year 1947 was minted for bullion purposes.

 

Oh yikes! I should probably make this clear before this post continues any further:

*not my coin!*

But if you want I think I can find a photo of the reverse. Just don’t want to mislead anyone about ownership of the coin.

I plan on buying a Victoria 1882 one some day.

 

I don't think the proofs where intended for circulation.
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces13228.html

 

Just an example. I just used a proof for better details since the uncirculated ones I could find had faint areas and weakly struck areas.

 

I guess that one wins! If it was used regularly in commerce rather than being hoarded.

Wow and the face value is only 50 pesos. Apparently the peso used to be a much stronger currency.

 

The peso was pretty stable for most of Mexico's history.
There was a big inflation during the 1913 revolution and another after WW2.

 

Hmm I didn’t know that.

I do know at one point the Latin Monetary Union was created so that each country had its own currency but the metal contents were equal.

A 5 Franc silver coin had as much silver as a 5 German mark silver coin and a 5 Spanish Peseta silver coin and etc.,

Funnily enough apparently that’s the reason the super rare $4 gold stella coin was minted as test pieces in the possibility of aligning our standards with the LMU.

I just think it’s interesting how international transactions worked in a time when payment was in PMs.

 

A 5 Franc silver coin had as much silver as a 5 German mark silver coin and a 5 Spanish Peseta silver coin…..

That‘s not really true since Germany was not a member of the Latin Monetary Union.
Those coins had more silver and thus heavier.

 

I do not have this coin/ wish Icould afford it

Basel
AV 25 Dukaten ND (1741)
60mm. 87g

Small mintage but it did circulate among well off people.

 

Here is my AV 10 Zecchini
Papal States/ Bologna
Pope Pius VI
Heaviest coin struck by Papal States
This one has a striking error on legend, pretty neat....

 

Correction these are the actual 5 unit currencies of equal silver content per coin.

Mixed up the Italian Lire with the German mark.

 

How heavy is it?

 

36.75g.
The heaviest gold coins are....
AV 1000 Mohurs/ Mughal Empire/ Jahangir
Agra Mint
35 Pounds!!!!!
also struck AV 500 M/ 17.5 Pounds/
Shah Jahan I struck 200/ 100 Mohurs
The biggest Medieval AV coin
Spain/ Aragon
Enrique IV
AV 50 Enriques
90mm.
240g.
Venice struck huge coins too....105 Zecchini=354g.
Then all the 100 Dukaten......
Alas...I am one of the 99 percent that can never afford those beauties

 

Here is one I forgot I had,

Iran AV 10 Pahlavis
81.75g. 50mm.
paid $550US for it back in 80s

 

Here is photo of biggest/ baddest gold coin ever struck

AV 1000 Mohurs 1605
Agra Mint/ weight 19600g. 120mm.
This appeared in auction in 1983 alongside a 500 Mohurs.
Reserve was 24M for both coins, they did not sell.
Both where in the coll. of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Imagine what they would fetch in todays insane coin market 100M-500M?????
The 33 US Double Eagle 16 known sold for 19M

 

photo