Gold and silver premiums over spot

Premium over spot = our check/wire price ÷ (the Ask spot price × the piece's fine metal content) − 1. A 1 oz gold coin at $4,200 when the gold Ask is $4,000 an ounce carries a 5% premium. Card and PayPal payments add 5% to the check/wire price.

• Check or bank wire

  → The price the premium is measured on

• Card or PayPal

  → 5% added to the check/wire price

The Ask spot is the price level dealers quote when you buy metal; it sits a little above the bid quoted on trading screens. We measure from the Ask because it is the buying side of the market, the same basis our live price pages show. Today's numbers use the Ask at the time our prices were last updated.

History comes from one record per product per day since Oct 27, 2024: our daily price snapshots, and before them our recorded prices, each against the spot price it was set from and converted to the Ask the same way as today's numbers, so today and history compare like with like. Days before a product's definition changed (a single coin relisted as a tube, for example) are left out.

Charts show a 14-day rolling median; the dashed line is the 2-year median. A dot marks the day we lowered our premium on a product, when the lower premium still stands today, and the shaded band runs from that day to today.

"Lower than on X% of days since …" compares today's premium with every day of the product's own history (bid basis on both sides); for a group, it is the median of its products' own figures. It appears only when today is lower than on at least 51% of those days, and for a group only when its typical premium today is not above its 2-year median. Products need 90 days of history for their own figure.

Each card is one format: the standard government bullion coins of that size (no lunar, proof, graded, colorized or dated issues), or the plain bars and rounds of that size. "Typical" is the median across the format's in-stock products after leaving out prices far from the others (recording errors); the chart is the format's daily median. "Every size we stock" lists every in-stock listing by metal, kind and size, collector issues included. The size curve places each format at the median fine weight of its products in stock (log scale) and at its typical premium today; British Sovereign (one product) is a point off the line. What a budget buys takes, for each format, the one product whose whole pieces give the most fine metal for the amount, at its check/wire price after the quantity price our checkout gives that product, within our stock; when those pieces come to less than the $1,000 check/wire minimum, the card/PayPal price (5% more) is used. Cost per fine ounce divides what is paid by the fine metal bought. Shipping and any sales tax are added at checkout.

Premiums move with supply and demand, and smaller pieces cost more per ounce to make. Past premiums don't predict future ones. This is information about our prices, not investment advice.