And some of my nicer sovs - Part I: Victoria

I think this rounds up most of the interesting photos I've got - this one is just highlights as pics of a load of sovs will get a bit samey.  1855, 1869, 1877, 1887 and 1894.  I haven't got anything pre-Victorian, unfortunately.

The colour difference is what always surprises me.

Admin wrote:The colour difference is what always surprises me.

It's a bit exaggerated here - when I was shooting those I noticed the colour balance was off halfway through the shoot so I recalibrated the camera, but I couldn't be arsed re-doing the first coins that I hadn't already shot.  Ergo, the 1855 looks a bit redder than it really should.

There are some differences in the formulation of the alloy, though.  It doesn't take a lot of silver in the alloy to lift the colour quite substantially.  Victorian sovs tended to have about 0.3% to 0.4% silver in the alloy, which is enough to change the colour from the rose gold of modern sovs (which have no silver in the alloy) to something much more gold in colour.  If you compare the colour of an AGE (which has about 3% silver) you can see it's got a really pale colour compared to .999 gold cons or even something like a 19th century sov.

Sovs also sometimes accumulate gold sulphide corrosion, much like silver toning, but the process is a lot slower.  This is a sort of brick red colour.

You can see a transition in the alloy with Machin sovs.  If you sit a date run next to each other, they change notably in colour as the mint from an alloy of about 0.3% or so down to 0 silver.

Actually, I rather like the alloy that Gillicks were made in.  It had a little less silver than the 19th century sovs, so it's slightly redder in colour, which makes them look quite warm.

The rose gold colour of modern sovs tends to cause a fair bit of controversy.  However, the legislation only mandates the gold content, but doesn't make any representation about the other metals in the alloy.  Adding 0.3% silver to the alloy would use about 1.5p worth of silver per coin, and even other contemporary manufacturers such as PAMP-MMTC made a point in their literature about the colour of the coins.  The mint has never given a satisfactory explanation about why they don't do it, but I have no doubt they could charge enough extra for the sovs to cover the cost of the silver.