Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereigns

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Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereigns are the beautiful and memorable gold round proofs that celebrated the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Princess Catherine in the grand style and tradition that the island archipelago does so well. Manufactured by the British Royal Mint in their Welsh mint location, the coins are denominated as double sovereigns and are legal tender with real face value within the British colony.

Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereign Coins Background and History

Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereigns come courtesy of the government of this most remote, inhabited island archipelago on earth. This main island of the island group of the same name proves to be volcanic. While Tristan Da Cunha is a British colony, it has the authority to strike its own coins under the auspices of the London government within the over thousand year old historic British Royal Mint institution.

These gold sovereign coins are common to Great Britain and her overseas dependency of both today and yesteryear. This sovereign turns out to be an important staple within the stable of historic coins the U.K. has been minting consistently for more than a thousand years of proud numismatic tradition and history. The Royal Mint in Llantrisant, Wales strikes these sovereign coins in denominations of five pound sovereigns, two pound double sovereigns, single pound sovereigns, and half British pound half sovereigns.

The first series of gold sovereigns within the context of the British Empire were last struck in 1604 over four hundred years ago. Two hundred years later, Her Majesty's government revived the coin design and issued the second series of sovereigns from 1816 in a contrived attempt to stabilize the British economy and finances after the combined one-two blows of both the French Revolutionary Wars and the costly Napoleonic Wars.

These new varieties of gold sovereigns were minted in 1817. Production of the pieces was not consistent for longer than the next Britannic Century of Pax Britannia. Through 1917, it appeared annually. From 1917 to 1957, the British mint only produced the coins in 1925 as Winston Churchill strove to bring Great Britain back onboard the the famous and then-defunct Gold Standard. New coins were struck from the years 1949 to 1951, though they were backdated using the 1925 dies that featured the historic and beloved visage of His Majesty King George V rather than the then-reigning monarch, his son George VI. Production with current busts resumed in 1957. These coins were no longer publicly circulating at this point, having been removed from official circulation before 1932. An unbelievable more than one billion British gold sovereigns have been produced in modern British Imperial history, though many of these have been subsequently melted down.

In the first series of the double sovereign gold coins, the coins bore a crown and shield theme surrounded by a symbolic wreath on the front of the coins. Later they converted this over to the portrait of St. George slaying the infamous dragon. Alternate designs have appeared during the rule of King William IV, Queen Victoria, King George IV, and Queen Elizabeth II. Even today, the portrayals of St. George and the dragon still appear on many of the sovereign gold coins minted in Tristan da Cunha and the other overseas dependencies of Great Britain.

Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereign Coins Physical Characteristics

Coin Design

The obverse is the technical term for the front of coins. Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereigns on this particular year 2011 feature the traditional portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in cameo proof form.

The back of coins is known as the “reverse.” Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereigns feature a special conjoined portrait of Prince William and Princess Kate facing to the right side. The coin was issued in a lovely wooden display box, pictured below.

Specifications

Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereign Coins possess a face value of two British pounds sterling. Their specifications are as follows:

• Mass: 0.4716 troy oz
• Diameter: 32 mm
• Thickness: 1.5 mm
• Purity: 91.67% gold fineness

Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereign Coins Pricing

Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereign Coins possess a face value of two British pounds. They are legal tender in the island archipelago as well as in Britain. You could parlay the coins for goods and services at face value if you wished to in theory, but no one would ultimately choose to do this because the intrinsic value of the coins contains gold worth more than $1,000. This substantial value is derived mostly from the spot price of gold as noted daily in London, Hong Kong, and New York. These coins enjoy a substantial collector's value premium above the world gold prices because of this popular collectable nature and extremely limited mintages of less than 10,000 pieces.

It is this intrinsic gold value that provides these gems with their true market value. Such market value proves to be extremely important for those who choose to add these coins to their retirement or investment portfolios, since they will make the true value of the portfolios where they reside. Real market value from these issues comes from gyrating gold prices which change on an every weekday basis plus Sundays. You can figure out what the current live price of gold is at any given moment live by selecting this link to our homepage.

Can IRA Accounts Contain Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereign Coins?

Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereign Coins are both exotic and memorable for those investors interested in adding attractive and rare gold to their retirement vehicles. To learn if these lovely pieces may be a part of your IRA retirement account, you have to determine if the Internal Revenue Service allows them to be included or not. It is the IRS which holds the sole rights to reject or approve any bullion gold or silver for IRA accounts. They critically judge all possible bullion contenders using the dual standards of high gold purity and low collectability and premium.

These Tristan Da Cunha Gold Double Sovereign Coins contain less than the minimum gold standard fineness the IRS insists on of .995 with their actual .9167 gold purity level. They also determine them to be highly collectible pieces with a significant collectible premium. Because of the failure on both accounts, the strict IRS does not give these coins a pass for inclusion in your precious metals IRA.

Regarding the IRS' precise guidelines for holding these coins, your IRA administrator must directly convey your new bullion coins to an IRS-approved third party depository for both maintenance and vault storage. You must begin by purchasing minimally $5,000 of those precious metals which are approved in order to set up the account. Later on you can decide to add additional precious metals for only a minimum of $1,000 in more bullion purchases comprised of gold, silver, platinum, and/or palladium coins or bars when you wish. If you already have an IRA account set up that is not a self directed variant, it is fairly easy to roll it on over into a precious metals IRA account.

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