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Why is the silver maple so much smaller than the eagle? You can't tell me it's the difference between 0.999 and 0.9999 purity. I wouldn't be able to detect a difference in size of 0.0009 (9 ten thousandths). Something is wrong here. I have some of both, and the eagle is much larger.

One has copper in, one doesn't. You weighed them? I think the maple is a bit thicker, no?

they are both 099.9 pure, no copper.

Lemon Thrower wrote:they are both 099.9 pure, no copper.

Purity would be 100 though right? Which is technically impossible is it not? This it must have *something* in it... Trace elements? I thought it was copper - my bad.

Anyway, regardless, they should both weigh the same - right?

if its .999 or .9999 the .001 or .0001 is not going to register on the scale, whether its copper or lead or whathaveyou. i don't know whether its copper or not, just pointing out that with .999 there is no meaningful amount of copper to increase the weight. D.S. is probably thinking of some U.S. gold which is 22K and has a full ounce of gold plus 2K of copper. 90% silver is like that as well - has .715 oucnes of silver plus some other metal

It's the thickness. Most world coins are smaller in diameter that the ASE but they all contain the same amount of material.

Purity has nothing to do with the weight. They all should weight exactly 1 oz no matter how pure they are.
ASE allow for 0.1% (99.9%) of impure material, Canadian Maple Leaf 0.01% - 99.99% pure, ten time less impure material.
At this purity, the impure material doesn't really matter if it's copper or something else, it's investment grade.

999 or sometime written .999 or sometime 3N are all the same. It's 99.9% pure with 0.1% of impurity.
9995 or sometime written .9995 or sometime 3N5 are all the same. It's 99.95% pure with 0.05% of impurity.
9999 or sometime written .9999 or sometime 4N are all the same. It's 99.99% pure with 0.01% of impurity.

The weight is the weight total you should see on a scale, including impure material.

Gold is usually put with silver and a ounce of gold 22k still weight 1 oz total, not 1 oz gold plus impure material.
22 k gold divide by total 24 k = 91.667%
So 91.66% of the ounce troy approximatively 28.5116 gram, will be in gold
The remaining, approximatively 2.5918 gram will be in another metal, silver most likely.
For a total weight of 31.1034768 gram or 1 troy ounce.

didou wrote:It's the thickness. Most world coins are smaller in diameter that the ASE but they all contain the same amount of material.

Purity has nothing to do with the weight. They all should weight exactly 1 oz no matter how pure they are.
ASE allow for 0.1% (99.9%) of impure material, Canadian Maple Leaf 0.01% - 99.99% pure, ten time less impure material.
At this purity, the impure material doesn't really matter if it's copper or something else, it's investment grade.

999 or sometime written .999 or sometime 3N are all the same. It's 99.9% pure with 0.1% of impurity.
9995 or sometime written .9995 or sometime 3N5 are all the same. It's 99.95% pure with 0.05% of impurity.
9999 or sometime written .9999 or sometime 4N are all the same. It's 99.99% pure with 0.01% of impurity.

The weight is the weight total you should see on a scale, including impure material.

Gold is usually put with silver and a ounce of gold 22k still weight 1 oz total, not 1 oz gold plus impure material.
22 k gold divide by total 24 k = 91.667%
So 91.66% of the ounce troy approximatively 28.5116 gram, will be in gold
The remaining, approximatively 2.5918 gram will be in another metal, silver most likely.
For a total weight of 31.1034768 gram or 1 troy ounce.

This is simply not true. GAE's are much larger than gold maples because there IS one full ounce of gold in an GAE and it's only 91.667% gold, while the gold maple is 0.9999.

Devil Soundwave wrote:One has copper in, one doesn't. You weighed them? I think the maple is a bit thicker, no?

I'm holding one of each in my hand. There is no perceptible difference in thickness, but the ASE is clearly significantly larger in diameter, probably 3mm.

HelloMeteor wrote:

Devil Soundwave wrote:One has copper in, one doesn't. You weighed them? I think the maple is a bit thicker, no?

I'm holding one of each in my hand. There is no perceptible difference in thickness, but the ASE is clearly significantly larger in diameter, probably 3mm.

Maple
38mmx2.87mm
31.103grams of silver
0.9999 purity

Eagle
40.6x2.98mm
31.103grams of silver
0.999 purity


Seriously, the math DOES NOT WORK. Once of these coins is not the purity it states, or does not contain the amount of silver stated.

They are both an ounce of whatever they are made of. One being .9993 the other being .9999 silver. GAEs are 91.66667% gold, 3% silver and remainder copper.

Hundreths of and ounce are negligible in the grand scheme of things.

I calculated the volume of each coin using your measurements

Maple =3253 cubic mm

ASE=3856 cubic mm

silver has a density of 10.5g/cc

If the silver were pure and you measurements were perfect

maple would weigh 34g
ase would weigh 40.4g

Something does not work out, maybe because the coins are not perfect cylinders so the math doesn't work.

Factoring the trace alloy in does not account for the difference.

A homework asssignment: put each coin in water and see if they displace the same volume. I'll bet they do

HelloMeteor wrote:This is simply not true. GAE's are much larger than gold maples because there IS one full ounce of gold in an GAE and it's only 91.667% gold, while the gold maple is 0.9999.

I was talking about random gold 22k, not GAE. I just answer the post right before mine.

Maple
38mmx2.87mm
31.103grams of silver
0.9999 purity

Eagle
40.6x2.98mm
31.103grams of silver
0.999 purity

Seriously, the math DOES NOT WORK. Once of these coins is not the purity it states, or does not contain the amount of silver stated.

Yes it does because isn't a full block of metal. Look carefully at the edge and how deep the design is.
If you cut them and look them from the side you will see that :



Canadian Maple leaf are really more thick on the field of the coin than American Silver Eagle.
Make a Archimedes test then put it on a precise scale. Pure silver is 10.49 gram per cubic centimeters.

Thogey wrote:I calculated the volume of each coin using your measurements

Maple =3253 cubic mm

ASE=3856 cubic mm

silver has a density of 10.5g/cc

If the silver were pure and you measurements were perfect

maple would weigh 34g
ase would weigh 40.4g

Something does not work out, maybe because the coins are not perfect cylinders so the math doesn't work.

Factoring the trace alloy in does not account for the difference.

A homework asssignment: put each coin in water and see if they displace the same volume. I'll bet they do

Thanks for the calculation. It show the Canadian maple leaf have a deep field of about 1.5g of silver on each side and ASE have 4.5g of silver on each side.

If you own a Wiener Philharmoniker from Austria look at it, it's even worst than the Canadian, you can clearly see it, it's almost a flat solid block of silver.

didou wrote:

HelloMeteor wrote:This is simply not true. GAE's are much larger than gold maples because there IS one full ounce of gold in an GAE and it's only 91.667% gold, while the gold maple is 0.9999.

I was talking about random gold 22k, not GAE. I just answer the post right before mine.

Maple
38mmx2.87mm
31.103grams of silver
0.9999 purity

Eagle
40.6x2.98mm
31.103grams of silver
0.999 purity

Seriously, the math DOES NOT WORK. Once of these coins is not the purity it states, or does not contain the amount of silver stated.

Yes it does because isn't a full block of metal. Look carefully at the edge and how deep the design is.
If you cut them and look them from the side you will see that :



Canadian Maple leaf are really more thick on the field of the coin than American Silver Eagle.
Make a Archimedes test then put it on a precise scale. Pure silver is 10.49 gram per cubic centimeters.

Wow. That's it. Thanks.

the pre-33 eagles are roughly 92% pure only. so there is a decent amount of copper in them. of course, they had less than a full ounce of gold. I think that is what hello meteor was thinking of. not all gold is .999. in fact, until recently, most gold was much less pure. becasue gold is so soft, gold minted into coins was alloyed with something else like copper to strengthen it.

Thanks for clearing this up boys, all makes sense.