How much is a Tenth-ounce Eagle worth?
Specification
| Gross weight | 3.393 g |
|---|---|
| Fineness | 916.7 (91.67%) |
| Fine gold content | 3.11 g |
| Fine gold, troy oz | 0.1 |
| Diameter | 16.5 mm |
| Mint | United States Mint |
| Country | United States |
| Face value | $5 |
| First issued | 1986 |
About this coin
The smallest Eagle and the one with the steepest premium of the family, often 8 to 12% over melt against 3 to 5% for the full ounce. If your aim is simply to own gold rather than to give a coin as a gift, the arithmetic argues against the small sizes.
The entry ticket, honestly priced out
This is the cheapest way to own an American gold coin, and the most expensive way to own gold. Both halves of that sentence are true at once, and anyone selling you a tenth-ounce without saying the second half is doing you a disservice. Premiums on this size routinely reach 15-25% over melt - the fixed costs of striking and shipping a coin do not shrink just because the coin did.
Run the round trip before buying a stack of these: pay 20% over melt today, sell at melt later, and gold has to rise a fifth just to return your money. That is not a reason never to buy one. It is a reason to know you are buying a coin, not an investment position.
What it is genuinely good for
A real gold coin for under five hundred dollars makes gold giftable, collectible and testable - a first coin for a child, a tangible thank-you, a low-stakes way to learn how buying and selling actually works before six-figure decisions. At 16.5 millimetres it is smaller than a dime, which surprises everyone the first time. Keep it in its capsule; a coin this small shows every scratch.
How this size compares
| Fine gold | 3.11 g |
|---|---|
| In troy ounces | 0.1 ozt |
| In pennyweights | 2 dwt |
| Equal to | 0.42 gold sovereigns |
| Bars per kilo | 321.51 of these make one kilo of gold |
Questions people ask
- How much is a Tenth-ounce Eagle worth today?
- Its gold content is worth $412.54 at the current spot price of $4,125.39 per troy ounce. That is the melt value - it contains 0.1 troy ounces of fine gold. A dealer will pay under this figure when buying and charge over it when selling. The tenth-ounce is where premium arithmetic turns openly hostile.
- How much does a Tenth-ounce Eagle weigh?
- 3.393 grams gross at 916.7 fineness, which is 3.11 grams of actual gold. The gross weight is what your scale reads; the fine weight is what it is worth. Multiplying the gross weight by the spot price would overstate this coin by about 9.1%.
- Who makes the Tenth-ounce Eagle and is it legal tender?
- It is struck by the United States Mint in United States, first issued in 1986. It carries a face value of $5, which is symbolic - the gold in it is worth many times that.
- Why is the premium on a tenth-ounce Eagle so high?
- Striking, packaging, distributing and retailing a coin costs about the same whether it holds an ounce or a tenth. Spread across 3.1 grams of gold instead of 31, that fixed cost becomes a 15-25% premium instead of 3-6%. The spread exists on the sell side too, which is what makes small coins poor vehicles for accumulating weight.
- How big is a tenth-ounce Eagle actually?
- Sixteen and a half millimetres across - smaller than a US dime, though noticeably heavier in the hand. The size startles most first-time buyers, which is worth knowing before one arrives in the post.
- How current is this valuation?
- It is calculated live from the spot price, currently $4,125.39 per troy ounce from swissquote, read at 18:45 UTC. Nothing on this page is a cached daily figure.