What is melt value?
The melt value of a coin is what the metal inside it would be worth if melted down at the current spot price. It's the rock-bottom floor for what a bullion coin should ever sell for, and a useful sanity check before you accept or offer a price. Coins trade at a premium over melt because someone had to refine, mint, market, distribute, and store them — and because some coins (sovereigns, fractional Eagles, semi-numismatic strikes) carry collector value beyond their gold content.
Typical premiums
As a rough guide for one-ounce gold coins in normal market conditions:
- American Gold Eagle — 4-8% over spot
- South African Krugerrand — 3-5% over spot (lowest, most liquid)
- Canadian Maple Leaf — 3-5% over spot
- Austrian Philharmonic — 3-5% over spot
- Chinese Panda — 6-12% over spot (semi-numismatic, annual designs)
- American Buffalo — 5-8% over spot (24k purity premium)
Fractional coins (1/2, 1/4, 1/10 oz) carry meaningfully larger percentage premiums because minting cost is roughly fixed per coin. Silver coins in particular often trade at 15-30% over spot once the silver price is below $30 because the minting cost becomes a larger share of total price.
Why dealers pay below melt sometimes
When you sell back, a dealer typically pays at or slightly below spot melt for popular bullion coins, and well below melt for damaged, cleaned, or counterfeit-suspected items. The dealer-buy price for a one-ounce Eagle in good condition is usually 95-100% of spot. Anything advertised as "we pay spot or above" is usually conditional on volume and condition; read the fine print.
Related
- Buying physical gold: bars vs coins, premiums and storage
- Scrap gold calculator for jewellery
- Holdings calculator to track your whole stack