The story of bullion coins

What makes a coin a bullion coin?

A bullion coin is made to hold a set amount of precious metal. The US Mint puts it simply: bullion coins are "valued by weight and fineness." In plain terms, what matters most is how much gold or silver is inside and how pure it is.

A collector coin is a different animal. The US Mint notes that collector coins are also valued for limited mintage, rarity, condition and age. Proof coins, struck on highly polished blanks for a mirror-like background, are a common collector format. The US Mint, for example, makes proof versions of its American Eagle bullion coins for collectors.

Most bullion coins carry a face value because they're legal tender. A one-ounce Gold Maple Leaf has a face value of $50, and a one-ounce Vienna Philharmonic says 100 euros. Those numbers are mostly symbolic. The Austrian Mint points out that the metal in its Philharmonic is worth far more than the face value.

A detour through the 1930s

To see why modern bullion coins took off when they did, it helps to look south of the border. On April 5, 1933, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102. It required Americans to hand in their gold coins, gold bullion and gold certificates by May 1, 1933.

There were a few exceptions. People could keep up to $100 in gold coin, along with gold needed for industry, a profession or art. The order also spared gold coins with "a recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins."

The next year, the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 changed the official gold price from $20.67 to $35 an ounce. Private gold ownership in the US stayed tightly restricted for about four decades. In 1974, President Gerald Ford signed an act of Congress allowing Americans to own and deal in gold again, and an order lifting the old gold regulations took effect on December 31, 1974.

The Krugerrand comes first

South Africa's Krugerrand arrived in 1967. Proof coins were made in small numbers from 1967 to 1969, and mass production began in 1970. The Rand Refinery makes the gold blanks, and the South African Mint strikes the coins.

The idea came from the Chamber of Mines of South Africa, which wanted to encourage the "man in the street" to invest in gold. Each coin holds exactly one ounce of fine gold in a 22-karat alloy (91.67% gold). It shows Paul Kruger on one side and a springbok, South Africa's national animal, on the other. On purpose, it carries no face value at all, so its value would clearly follow the price of gold.

Half, quarter and tenth-ounce sizes followed in 1980. When sanctions were placed on South Africa in the mid-1980s, few Krugerrands were exported for years afterward.

Canada's Gold Maple Leaf

The Royal Canadian Mint launched the Gold Maple Leaf in 1979. It was 99.9% pure, which made it purer than the 22-karat Krugerrand. The LBMA, the body that sets standards for the London gold market, calls it the world's first legal tender bullion coin weighing one troy ounce at that fineness.

Three years later, in 1982, the Mint raised the purity again, to 99.99%. The same year brought half, quarter and tenth-ounce sizes. The single maple leaf on the coin has stayed the same since the first issue.

The Silver Maple Leaf followed in 1988, also at 99.99% purity. The Mint kept pushing on purity, too. A proof Maple Leaf in 99.999% gold came out in 1998, and in 2007 the Mint introduced its first 99.999% gold bullion coin.

The 1980s wave

Through the 1980s, more countries launched bullion coins of their own:

• China's Gold Panda, 1982. Made in 99.9% gold, with a panda design that changes almost every year. The other side shows the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. In 2016, China switched the coin's weights from troy ounces to grams.
• American Eagle, 1986. The US Mint has made gold Eagles since 1986, in 22-karat gold. Lady Liberty is inspired by Augustus Saint-Gaudens' 1907 $20 "Double Eagle." Silver Eagles, in 99.9% silver, also date from 1986.
• Australian Nugget, 1986. Australia's precious metals coin program formally began in August 1985, and the first proof coins came out in late 1986 in 99.99% gold. The one-ounce coin showed the famous Welcome Stranger nugget. In 1989, a kangaroo replaced the nuggets.
• Britannia, 1987. The UK's Royal Mint introduced a gold Britannia, designed by Philip Nathan, in 22-karat gold. In 2013, it raised the purity to 24 karat (99.99%).
• Vienna Philharmonic, 1989. Austria's gold Philharmonic went on sale on October 10, 1989, in 99.99% gold. A silver version followed in 2008.

The big bullion coins at a glance

Built-in security, Canadian style

To help guard against fakes, the Royal Canadian Mint has built security features into its coins. Its Maple Leafs have fine radial lines across the background. Each line is machined to within microns, which creates a light-diffracting pattern. The coins also carry a tiny micro-engraved maple leaf mark.

The Mint also developed Bullion DNA with a French partner, EDGYN SAS. A registered coin is placed in a reader, photographed with an app, and matched against a database to confirm it's genuine. It covers Gold Maple Leafs from 2014 and Silver Maple Leafs from 2015.

The Mint has also made "single-mine" Maple Leafs, struck entirely from gold from one mine. The first, in 2022, used gold from the Meliadine Mine in Nunavut. A 2024 edition used gold from Detour Lake in northern Ontario, which the Mint called the largest gold-producing mine in Canada. You can read more about that region on our Ontario gold and silver rushes page.

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