Sell sovereigns and gold coins

Is it a sovereign, and is it real?

A sovereign is smaller than people expect: 22 mm across, a shade wider than a twenty pence piece, with a finely milled edge. The usual reverse shows St George on horseback killing a dragon; some Victorian coins show a crowned shield instead. The obverse carries the monarch's head, and the date sits either under the head or beneath the dragon, depending on the design.

The sovereign family: legal standard weights (The Royal Mint publishes them rounded, the sovereign as 7.98 g) and Royal Mint diameters

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Weight and diameter together catch crude copies. A gilt brass replica of the right diameter will be light; one made to the right weight will be too thick. A struck sovereign has a crisp, even milled edge and sharp detail in the dragon's scales and the horse's mane, where a cast copy looks soft and grainy under a magnifier. Gold is not magnetic. Some forgeries, though, are struck in real 22ct gold to the right weight and size, so a scarce date is never taken as genuine on measurements alone: where a coin's value depends on it, we tell you to have it seen by a coin dealer.

The letter under the hooves, and why the date matters

Sovereigns were struck in London and at six branch mints across the Empire, and each branch put a small mint mark on the coin: a single letter, except at Pretoria, which used SA. On most St George coins it sits just above the date, below the ground line. On a shield reverse it is beneath the shield. On Victoria's young head St George sovereigns of 1871 to 1887 from Melbourne and Sydney it is on the other side, below the Queen's head. It is small enough that most people have never noticed it, and it is the first thing we look for.

• S for Sydney, M for Melbourne and P for Perth, the Australian branch mints; some dates from each are scarce
• C for Ottawa, I for Bombay and SA for Pretoria, with smaller output again; Bombay struck sovereigns in 1918 only, and modern sovereigns with an I have been struck in India under licence since 2013
• No letter usually means the Royal Mint itself, in London and later at Llantrisant
• A shield in place of St George is an earlier design, and one collectors follow by date
• A young or a jubilee head of Victoria, rather than the old veiled head, is a matter of date, not of gold

Condition matters as much as rarity. A scarce date that spent forty years in a pocket is a worn scarce date. A common date that never circulated, with its original shine still on the flat parts of the coin, can be worth more to a collector than a worn scarce one. That is why nothing is judged from the weight alone; selling sovereigns for more than their gold explains more.

Britannias, Krugerrands and the rest of the tin

Modern bullion coins were bought as gold rather than spent as money, and they are often still in the packaging they were sold in. They are easy to identify because the mint that struck them publishes their specification.

Bullion coins seen most often

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Older world gold turns up too: French twenty franc angels and roosters, Swiss vrenelis, American double eagles, Indian and Ottoman coins with no Latin lettering at all. You do not need to identify any of it. Where a coin may carry collector interest we cannot judge, we say so before any offer and suggest a coin dealer.

Three things that cost people money before posting

• Leave coins in their capsules, cases, tubes and wallets. They can be photographed and identified in them.
• Hold a loose coin by its edge, between finger and thumb, and put each one in its own small bag or paper envelope.
• Do not rub a coin to see the date more clearly. A pencil eraser is abrasive and leaves the same fine scratches polish does.
• Keep certificates, mint packaging and old purchase receipts with the coins. They are part of what the coin is.
• A coin soldered into a pendant mount is still a coin. Leave the mount on; taking it off at home usually tears the rim.

Send the whole tin

Coins come in biscuit tins, in folders and albums, in envelopes marked in a grandparent's handwriting, and mixed in with foreign holiday change and a few old pennies. There is no need to pick out the gold ones: gilded base metal can look very like gold, and sorting is our job. Photograph the tin first, and if the reply says to post, send it as it is.

Keep albums and folders together. A complete run of dates, or a set as it was issued, can be worth more assembled than the same coins scattered. If the coins are arranged, leave them as they are and tell us, because the order may matter.

For a collection of any size, or anything you think may be scarce, photographs are the sensible first move: both faces, flat on a plain surface, in daylight rather than under a lamp. A parcel of gold coins is small, heavy and valuable, so tell us roughly what you have. When you are ready to post, we arrange the postage with you and confirm the service and its cover in writing before anything is sent; posting safely and cover explains it. Coins can share a parcel with the rest of a drawer's gold, and selling gold by post covers the jewellery side. If the coins were inherited, probate and estate jewellery and tax when you sell inherited gold and coins are worth reading first.

What happens to coins when they arrive

1. Counted and photographedEverything in the parcel is photographed, packaging included, before any coin is handled on its own, so there is a record of what arrived.
2. Identified one at a timeType, date, mint mark, reign and design are read and written down. This takes care, and it is the part that protects you.
3. Checked against the specificationEach loose coin is weighed and measured, and its weight and diameter are compared with the issuing mint's published figures. The methods used are listed on the offer. A coin left sealed in its case is identified from the case and certificate, and the list says it was assessed sealed. A forgery that matches every check is uncommon but not impossible.
4. Condition notedWear, shine, edge knocks and any sign of cleaning or mounting are noted, because condition can matter more than date.
5. Listed, then one offerYou get a list naming every coin and flagging any that may be worth more to a collector, so you can take those to a coin dealer first. Then one written offer for the lot, which you accept or decline; offers, returns and payment explains both answers.

Nothing is scratched, filed or acid-tested. A destructive test would damage the coin the identification is meant to protect. The methods used instead, and what each can and cannot prove, are on how items are tested.

What we buy, and what we leave out

Stopped before anything is treated as scrap

• Scarce dates, branch mint marks and early reigns are flagged before any offer, so you can take them to a coin dealer first
• Coins with their original shine or unusually sharp detail are set aside, and we tell you they may be worth more to a coin dealer
• Proof coins in sealed cases with their certificates are kept together and set aside for you to decide on
• Complete date runs, albums and issued sets are kept together, never broken up
• Coins from before Queen Victoria are looked at one by one and flagged for a specialist
• A coin in a mount is left in it, and any rim damage is noted