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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;krispy, post: 1416575, member: 19065&quot;]This is kind of a neat topic and I know it&#039;s too hard for me to choose just one or the other, so I&#039;ll share some thoughts.... <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>We could&nbsp; be even more specific in our consideration because one metal influences&nbsp; the other to some degree, as well as do additional metals at play. It&#039;s&nbsp; rather hard to say which, gold vs. silver, other than a purely&nbsp; subjective choice based on personal preferences, ideals, and coin types&nbsp; being imagined by respondents to this query. This is particularly so&nbsp; with those gold coins that contain varying amounts of silver (and often&nbsp; copper) and silver coins which contain copper. The metals in coins are&nbsp; not purely one metal, but rather alloy comprised of other metals. These&nbsp; metals combined to create something different than <i>just</i> silver or <i>just</i>&nbsp; gold-- though detection by the naked eye between three-nine and&nbsp; four-nine bullion seems pretty much humanly impossible for any consensus&nbsp; to agree. </p><p><br /></p><p>I know you mentioned bullion in the OP, but you also mentioned owning both gold and silver <i>coins</i>,&nbsp; and so ASE and AGE are both bullion and coins, which have precious&nbsp; metals compositions, so by extension, older type US coins that&nbsp; circulated with precious metals compositions fit here too, as they are&nbsp; also bought and sold as bullion. So then, what of specific coin types...&nbsp; Silver alloy US &#039;war nickels&#039; (which also contain magnesium in the&nbsp; composition) can be both fugly and gorgeous, but even then there will be&nbsp; a degree of subjective individual choice in the matter, regarded&nbsp; coin-by-coin by it&#039;s appearance. </p><p><br /></p><p>Even if we compare silver only,&nbsp; are we talking about U.S. coins only? For some U.S. coins, we should&nbsp; consider the silver content changed from 90% to 40% in some series and&nbsp; so their appearance also differs between the two alloys. Compare also&nbsp; sterling silver medals of .925 to that of .90 and .999 silver&nbsp; commemorative pieces, art bars/rounds or bullion. Many other nations&nbsp; tinkered with ever smaller percentages of silver in their coin&nbsp; composition alloys over the years until it all disappeared from&nbsp; circulation as economic considerations and standards changed.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp; Mexican coins vastly differ in silver content and many circulated silver&nbsp; coins from that country leave much to be desired in appearances.&nbsp; However, many find the 50 Peso gold coin one of the most beautiful, the&nbsp; Centenarios were larger than many others of the time, 1.2057 troy oz.&nbsp; composed of 90% gold and 10% copper. The amount of space a coin takes up&nbsp; also may be more dazzling to the eye, when a large amount of lustrous&nbsp; precious metal catches the light and glows back at your eye, more of it&nbsp; seems to impress us more deeply. Moving away from coins for a moment,&nbsp; but sticking to silver vs. gold and eye appeal, we see more illuminated&nbsp; manuscripts, holy places and ritual objects that play with the light&nbsp; made of gold (which endures longer without tarnishing) than we do of&nbsp; silver, particularly thinking of leaf gold and silver, silver reacts&nbsp; badly to oxidation and blackens, where gold shines on, even seeming to&nbsp; become enriched with character over time. So too do some gold coins,&nbsp; whose alloys redden or are described in terms of yellow-greens,&nbsp; violet-pinks and so on. Particularly descriptive coin auctions of&nbsp; &#039;toners&#039; often seek rich color descriptions that speak to the enthusiast&nbsp; of those coins as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t think we can draw this&nbsp; comparison in such simple black/white terms, applied across all coins as&nbsp; factors vary too widely and we may find that each series or type of&nbsp; precious metal has it&#039;s own unique position in a great range of eye&nbsp; appeal, some of which isn&#039;t even stable, but changes in subtle degrees&nbsp; over time.</p><p><br /></p><p>The attached image comes from Wikipedia, on a page about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored_gold" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored_gold" rel="nofollow">colored gold</a>, showing a general chart of allow blends between just: Gold, silver and copper, for reference to color change in such alloys:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]172103.vB[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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