Chile Gold 100 Pesos

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Chile is an interesting country whose mint has a relatively long history of striking beautiful gold coins at their facility in Santiago. The Chile Gold 100 Pesos is their signature gold coin. Though these coins are no longer minted, they continue to grow in popularity with investors and collectors of foreign gold pieces.

Chile Gold 100 Pesos Background and History

Chile was conquered from the Inca Indians by the Spanish Conquistador Pedro de Valdivia. He established its capital Santiago in 1541. Among the top priorities of the Spanish in subjecting practically all of South America (besides Brazil) was to obtain gold. Because of this, Chile has a long history of producing a range of gold coins over the centuries. This interesting history has made its gold coins a popular subject for gold collectors.

Chile established its own national government back in 1810. Within a few years by 1818, they had obtained complete independence from Spain. Since this time, they have experienced a varied history with money that ranged from long time frames with high amounts of inflation occasionally mixed in with a couple of periods of monetary stability. From 1926 to 1980, the Chilean Santiago Mint struck this long running series of Gold 100 Pesos. The design has long been considered to be highly artistic and has led to the coins being greatly sought out by collectors of international gold coins.

There were never many of these Chile Gold 100 Pesos coins struck. The largest year of circulation proved to be the first year 1926 when 678,000 were minted. Ironically, these are also the most expensive coins in the series to buy and cost more than twice as much as the last years of issue. Most years, only a few hundred thousand of the coins became minted. In the final years of issue 1978 to 1980, the mint only struck and released a paltry 25,000, 100,000, and 50,000 coins, respectively.

Chile Gold 100 Pesos Physical Characteristics

Coin Design

The front side of all coins is referred to as the “obverse” in numismatics. The obverse of the Chile Gold 100 Pesos coins contains a depiction of the Lady of Liberty facing left. This laureate female head stands for the Republic. She wears a Chilean dress. Around the top half of the coin in an arch is scripted the words “REPUBLICA DE CHILE.” On the bottom center of the obverse rim is the date of issue.

The back side of the coins is always called the “reverse” in the world of coin collecting. On the reverse of the Chile Gold 100 Pesos is emblazoned the national coat of arms of Chile. This is comprised of a shield bearing a five pointed star. From the top of the shield sprouts a plume of feathers. The shield itself is held up by two animals with crowns, an eagle like and a deer like figure. Below the shield is a laurel wreath. On the top half of the reverse rim is inscribed in an arc “CIEN PESOS.” The bottom half of the rim bears the phrases “100 Ps” and “DIEZ CONDORES.” To the right of the shield is a monogram “S^o” that is the Santiago de Chile mint mark. This is the location where all of these coins were struck.

Specifications

These coins come with a little more than half an ounce of gold at approximately .53 troy ounces of actual gold.

• Mass: .5886 troy ounces
• Diameter: 31.1 mm
• Thickness: 2.1 mm
• Content: 90.0% gold

Chile Gold 100 Pesos Pricing

These Chile Gold 100 Pesos coins are all legal tender within the Republic of Chile. Their face value is 100 pesos as the coins themselves attest. While holders of the coin could trade them for this amount of money in goods and services in Chile, no one would actually do this. The reason is that the price for such coins, or their intrinsic value, is far higher. Its value is based on both the gold spot price and also the year specific supply and relevant demand.

It is the intrinsic value that determines the market price of these coins. Market price is the actual value of the coin as held in investment or retirement portfolios. There is a significant premium on these pieces over the spot price of gold. It derives from the substantial demand of collectors and investors. The premium also stems from the costs of minting these coins and their distribution expenses. The actual market value of these coins rises and falls each day with the moving price of gold. It is easy for you to learn the real time daily price of gold by navigating to our homepage.

Can IRA Accounts Contain Chile Gold 100 Pesos Coins?

The Internal Revenue Service has full discretion over any gold coins and whether or not they may be included in these IRA retirement accounts. Self directed precious metals IRAs may only hold coins which measure up to both purity and collectibility standards set by the IRS. The government mandates that a minimum first purchase of $5,000 dollars in bullion must be acquired to fund a precious metals IRA. Subsequent purchases may be obtained for lower minimums of $1,000 more. Those who own another type of IRA can roll it over into a precious metals IRA. After approved bullion has been secured, you have to store it in an off site depository which the IRS allows. Such vaults serve the purpose of protecting and maintaining your precious metals holdings.

Chile Gold 100 Pesos coins do not meet the .995 gold fineness with a purity level of only 90.0%. Even if they contained the necessary gold purity, they would still not meet the strict IRS requirement regarding collectibility. These coins are highly collectible and many years trade with a substantial premium over gold prices. For both of these reasons, Chile Gold 100 Pesos can not be contained within a self directed IRA account. They do make interesting and exciting investment choices for other kinds of holdings. You can buy these Chile Gold 100 Pesos coins from a variety of well regarded bullion and international coin dealers throughout the world.

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