Does Gold Or Silver Have Better Eye Appeal?

I was looking through my bullion coins over the weekend and noticed something I have never really thought about consciously before. I have both gold and silver coins and discovered the silver coins seem to maintain a better glimmer and eye appeal over time. Does anybody else feel that way also or am I just a member of the vocal minority? Maybe that's why I have so many more silver coins than gold (in addition to cost, of course). Maybe that's why I am drawn to silver more and have never realized it.

 

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I would say silver tones prettier. Gold to my eyes becomes dullish, while silver can actually become prettier depending on the toning.

I very well could be biased as well though.

 

I actually prefer the color silver over gold, so I collect silver over gold for the most part myself.

 

I like how silver looks more then gold. It definitely has a better glimmer and shine to it imho.

However I do like nice polished gold because big hunks of gold are pretty boss.

With coins though gold needs to be in high MS shape to actually look super pretty.There was a thread a week ago with some 1900ish gold coins that looked pretty damn sweet. But with silver even a XF coin can be pretty astounding.

 

This is a tough one. Aesthetically I like the look of silver better, but something about gold is a more awe inspiring. Maybe it's psychological.

 

You took the words right out of my mouth. I love silver and the way it tones and shines. But gold is, well, gold. There is something almost majestic about the look of gold, especially when in coin form.

 

Ancient Aliens engineered our DNA to adore PMs.

 

I thought it was adore something a little more.....feminine.

 

Like a gold coin with a woman on it?

 

verb: to worship. I can't imagine why you said that, but Im glad you found it funny.

 

Speaking of funny, feminine and worship, this joke came to mind:



A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation to Jerusalem. While they were there, the wife passed away.

The undertaker told the husband, "You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here, in the Holy Land, for $150."

The man thought about it and told him he would just have her shipped home.

The undertaker asked, "Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your wife home, when it would be wonderful to be buried here and you would spend only $150?"

The man replied, "Long ago a man died here, was buried here, and three days later he rose from the dead. I just can't take that chance."

 

I think silver is a better looking material for coins, but Rembrandt painted the Jewish Bride with actual gold.

 

This is kind of a neat topic and I know it's too hard for me to choose just one or the other, so I'll share some thoughts....

We could be even more specific in our consideration because one metal influences the other to some degree, as well as do additional metals at play. It's rather hard to say which, gold vs. silver, other than a purely subjective choice based on personal preferences, ideals, and coin types being imagined by respondents to this query. This is particularly so with those gold coins that contain varying amounts of silver (and often copper) and silver coins which contain copper. The metals in coins are not purely one metal, but rather alloy comprised of other metals. These metals combined to create something different than just silver or just gold-- though detection by the naked eye between three-nine and four-nine bullion seems pretty much humanly impossible for any consensus to agree.

I know you mentioned bullion in the OP, but you also mentioned owning both gold and silver coins, and so ASE and AGE are both bullion and coins, which have precious metals compositions, so by extension, older type US coins that circulated with precious metals compositions fit here too, as they are also bought and sold as bullion. So then, what of specific coin types... Silver alloy US 'war nickels' (which also contain magnesium in the composition) can be both fugly and gorgeous, but even then there will be a degree of subjective individual choice in the matter, regarded coin-by-coin by it's appearance.

Even if we compare silver only, are we talking about U.S. coins only? For some U.S. coins, we should consider the silver content changed from 90% to 40% in some series and so their appearance also differs between the two alloys. Compare also sterling silver medals of .925 to that of .90 and .999 silver commemorative pieces, art bars/rounds or bullion. Many other nations tinkered with ever smaller percentages of silver in their coin composition alloys over the years until it all disappeared from circulation as economic considerations and standards changed.

Mexican coins vastly differ in silver content and many circulated silver coins from that country leave much to be desired in appearances. However, many find the 50 Peso gold coin one of the most beautiful, the Centenarios were larger than many others of the time, 1.2057 troy oz. composed of 90% gold and 10% copper. The amount of space a coin takes up also may be more dazzling to the eye, when a large amount of lustrous precious metal catches the light and glows back at your eye, more of it seems to impress us more deeply. Moving away from coins for a moment, but sticking to silver vs. gold and eye appeal, we see more illuminated manuscripts, holy places and ritual objects that play with the light made of gold (which endures longer without tarnishing) than we do of silver, particularly thinking of leaf gold and silver, silver reacts badly to oxidation and blackens, where gold shines on, even seeming to become enriched with character over time. So too do some gold coins, whose alloys redden or are described in terms of yellow-greens, violet-pinks and so on. Particularly descriptive coin auctions of 'toners' often seek rich color descriptions that speak to the enthusiast of those coins as well.

I don't think we can draw this comparison in such simple black/white terms, applied across all coins as factors vary too widely and we may find that each series or type of precious metal has it's own unique position in a great range of eye appeal, some of which isn't even stable, but changes in subtle degrees over time.

The attached image comes from Wikipedia, on a page about colored gold, showing a general chart of allow blends between just: Gold, silver and copper, for reference to color change in such alloys:

 

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I think silver coins with women on them can also be attractive.

 

Nice examples Race! I also love all the standing, striding and walking Liberty designs! I'll add one of my favorite coins with a lady, amongst many candidates, is the design of the British gold sovereign (1838-48), Victoria Young Head (portrait in profile) called the 'first head' type. I don't own an example of one yet but have been looking for one for my collection. There's info and pics at the link about them.

 

It depends on what type of gold you are talking about, with gold coins there used to be a lot of variety thanks to different alloys and composition compared with silver coins. Sadly now the 999.9s are dominating the market when it comes to gold coins.

Yellow Gold: 14k Gold alloyed with Silver

White Gold (Gold/Palladium)

Red Gold: 22k Gold (alloyed with Copper)

 

This is better

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As this thread is about precious metals, Goldfinger and that golden lady take the cake if we are deviating from coins for moment...

 

That might have limited taste, especially to women. I think I'll stick to Rembrandt who used REAL gold in his painting.

Amanda