Coin Pinger

Acoustic bullion authentication — free, private, on-device

Launch app

Gold coin guide

Gold Britannia 1 oz (1987–2012) — ping test & specs

Early Gold Britannias (1987–2012) were 22-karat (.9167), 34.05 g gross to hold one ounce of fine gold — alloyed with copper through 1989, then silver. The alloy shifts the ring from the later pure coins.

🎙 Test this coin now

Opens the free tester with this coin preselected — audio never leaves your device.

Official specifications

Weight34.05 g
Diameter32.69 mm
Composition.9167 gold (22k)

Source: The Royal Mint. Coin Pinger checks measured weight and diameter against these values.

Expected resonance range

Good confidence*
ModeExpected ringRecommended variance
c0d24.36–5.02 kHz±7.1%
c0d310.07–11.47 kHz±6.5%
c0d417.45–19.88 kHz±6.5%

A genuine Gold Britannia 1 oz (1987–2012) rings within these ranges at its c0d2/c0d3/c0d4 vibration modes, fixed by its size and metal. The recommended variance is how far a genuine specimen's ring can sit from each center — built up in quadrature from real manufacturing tolerance and temperature (under 1%), phone-mic capture reproducibility (≈4%), an extra allowance on the fundamental for minting-asymmetry splitting, and a per-metal model-uncertainty term (largest for .9999 gold, whose modulus is least certain). The higher modes also carry a small thick-plate centre correction, since a real coin is not infinitely thin. The good-confidence tag reflects how well-established this metal's constants are: Computed from 22k-gold alloy constants, which are slightly less certain than silver; the band is set accordingly. These are guidance bands, not exact values — see the methodology for the exact formula, or calibrate your own coin in the app for a specimen-exact reference and tighten each peak per coin.

* These are computed guidance ranges. Certain your Gold Britannia 1 oz (1987–2012) is genuine but it won't match? Send us its ring — we'll dig in and improve the reference.

🎙 Submit sample pings

How to ping test a Gold Britannia 1 oz (1987–2012)

  1. Hold — grip the coin by its center (a nodal point) in a coin ping-test holder so the rim rings freely; a fingertip at the center is a last resort.
  2. Tap — strike the edge with a striker near the microphone.
  3. Read the verdict — MATCH or NO MATCH against the peaks above, plus weight and size checks.
🎙 Test this coin now

Related gold coins

Austrian 100 Corona Gold APMEX Round 1/4 oz Gold American Eagle 1 oz Gold Azadi Gold Britannia 1 oz Gold Britannia 1 oz (2013–2025)
← Browse all coin guides
The physics of the Gold Britannia 1 oz (1987–2012) ping

Those 3 peaks aren't random. When you strike the coin it flexes as a free disc in fixed patterns called vibration modes — 0 nodal circles with 2, 3 and 4 nodal diameters, written c0d2 / c0d3 / c0d4. Each pattern rings at one frequency.

Where those frequencies land is set by the coin's geometry and metal. For a thin disc, frequency ∝ (thickness ÷ diameter²) × √(stiffness ÷ density). This Gold Britannia 1 oz (1987–2012) is 32.69 mm across in .9167 gold (22k), which puts its fundamental (c0d2) near 4690 Hz.

A perfect disc's modes sit near 1 : 2.3 : 3.9; this coin measures 1 : 2.30 : 3.98. That fixed spacing is the fingerprint of a genuine struck disc — Coin Pinger rejects taps that don't fit it (keys, glass, a coin lying on a hard surface).

And it's why a fake can't hide: change the metal and √(E/ρ) changes, so every mode moves. Struck in tungsten (which weighs almost exactly right) instead, the ring would land far higher and brighter — its c0d2 would land near ≈10700 Hz instead of 4690 Hz. Density can fool a scale; the ring can't be faked without the right metal.

We publish this as a Good confidence reference. Computed from 22k-gold alloy constants, which are slightly less certain than silver; the band is set accordingly.

Free-plate modes per A. W. Leissa, Vibration of Plates, NASA SP-160 (1969, public domain). See how we measure them →
Home · All coins · Algorithm · Methodology · Terms · Privacy