American Platinum Eagle?

Question

Alright, the American Platinum Eagle coin is worth 25$, 50$ and 100$ I believe (different versions, weight, I'm not a coin expert so I'm not really sure). I'm curious though, can you pay for things with these? In a store I mean, could you pay for a (for example) 45$ thing with one of these coins worth 50$ or more?

Answer 1

Yes you can but it would cost a lot more to buy them from the mint. As an example on April 16 the London spot on a Platinum $100 one ounce eagle was $2,024.00 so you would have to be a nut to spend it as a $100 coin. The truth is the governments of the world got smart and tricky, they noticed that precious metal bullion coins or I should say medals never had a good secondary market for they were not government issued or had a dollar value, in fast they were not coins. To be a coin it has to be issued by a government, have usually a date and a value. The more that government is respected the more coins it can sell. The only bullion coins that really seem to go up in value besides the metal content are the proofs which cost more and are made in very small quantities for the collector market.

Answer 2

Yes, the coins are assigned a legal tender value.  Technically they can be spent for the face value.

However, the coin's value is more appropriately based on the spot price of platinum.  Platinum is currently trading at $2,052 per ounce.  You can use this to determine the value of precious metal content for each platinum eagle coin denomination:

$100 face value = 1 ounce of platinum

$50 face value = 1/2 ounce of platinum

$25 face value = 1/4 ounce of platinum

$10 face value = 1/10 ounce of platinum