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A Buyer's Guide to the Gold Coins You'll See in Lebanon
Most people meet gold coins for the first time by inheriting them. A parent passes away, a drawer opens, and
inside sit a few small yellow coins with faces or script no one in the room can read. Or you decide to start saving in
gold, walk into a shop, and find a tray of coins that all look alike but carry different prices.
This guide does one thing. It helps you tell those coins apart. We will stick to the ones you actually see in Lebanon,
so you can look at a coin and know what you are holding. We keep the maths light here, because we already
explain how a coin's price is worked out in a separate post, and which coins are best to buy in another.
First, the one rule behind every coin
A gold coin has no fixed price. It is mostly worth its gold, so its value rises and falls with the price of gold every day.
To work it out you take the coin's weight, find how much of that is pure gold from its purity, and value that against
the current rate. Heavier coins, and coins of higher purity, simply hold more gold. A well known type of gold coin
then earns a small premium on top, because it is easy to trust and quick to resell.
Most coins below are 22 carat, which means the purity of the gold is about 91.6 percent, a little higher than the 21
carat gold common in local jewellery. Our guide on how to read a coin's karat shows the marks to look for. The
daily rate itself comes from the London Bullion Market Association, or LBMA, whose LBMA gold price is the
benchmark that bullion dealers everywhere follow. It is quoted in US dollars, not in Lebanese pounds, which is one
reason these coins hold their value when the local currency does not. When you want to buy or sell in person, you
can see the gold coins we buy and sell at our shop in Bourj Hammoud, near Beirut. Now to the coins themselves.
The British sovereign, the "English lira"
This is the coin most families mean when they say lira dhahab, and many call it the English lira. The ones you see
most often carry the head of King George. A King George gold coin from 1911 to 1936 is a common sight here,
though sovereigns run from Queen Victoria through to today.
You can spot it in a second. On the back, a horseman drives a spear into a dragon. That is Saint George, and it
appears on almost every sovereign ever struck. A face on the front, a horseman and dragon on the back, means
you are almost certainly holding a sovereign.
The numbers to know: a full sovereign weighs 7.99 grams, it is 22 carat, and it holds about 7.32 grams of pure
gold, close to a quarter of an ounce (oz). There is also a half sovereign at exactly half that weight.
The Ottoman lira and the Rashadi
Before the sovereign became common, this region ran on the Ottoman gold lira, and plenty are still held by older
families.
An Ottoman lira looks completely different from a sovereign. It has no portrait at all. Instead you see flowing Arabic-
style calligraphy, a royal seal called a tughra, and a few small stars. If your coin is covered in script rather than a
face, it is Ottoman, not English. The version traded most is the Rashadi lira, struck under Sultan Mehmed the Fifth,
whose name Reşad gives the coin its local nickname. It shows the year 1327 in the old calendar and was minted in
Istanbul.
The numbers: a one lira Ottoman coin weighs about 7.2 grams at 22 carat, holding roughly 6.6 grams of pure gold.
That makes it a little lighter than a sovereign, about nine tenths of one, so on the same day it is usually worth a bit
less. One thing to keep in mind. The Ottoman lira changed through several reforms, so some older pieces hold
slightly different amounts of gold. That is why a dealer weighs each coin rather than trusting the name.
The Napoleon and other coins you'll see
The French Napoleon, a 20 franc coin, turns up often. It is smaller, at 6.45 grams, and slightly less pure at 21.6
carat, so it holds about 5.8 grams of gold. It shows a French ruler's head on the front, so people sometimes mix it
up with a sovereign, but it is noticeably smaller and lighter once you have held both.
You may also see Swiss, Italian or other European coins of a similar size, plus modern one ounce coins made
purely for saving, like the Krugerrand, the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coin or the American Gold Eagle coin. These
are sold new in uncirculated condition and stamped clearly with their weight and purity, so they are the easiest of
all to identify. If your question is less about an old coin and more about what to buy new, our post on the best gold
coins to buy covers that side.
Before you buy or sell
A quick word on what happens at the counter, beyond the coin's name.
A recognised coin like a sovereign sells in seconds, from Beirut right across the Middle East, because every bullion
dealer knows it on sight. An unfamiliar coin may need testing first, which takes a little longer. Coins that were once
worn as jewellery, with a soldered loop or a hole, usually lose their premium and trade closer to plain scrap gold.
And remember there is a spread. When you sell, a dealer pays a little under the live rate, the same way any
currency has a buy rate and a sell rate. We tell you both openly before anything changes hands.
A small number of rare dates are worth more to collectors than their gold alone, but that is the exception. For
almost every coin you will hold, the gold is the value.
Common questions
How do I tell an English lira from a Rashadi?
Look at the front. A face means an English lira, which is a British sovereign. All calligraphy and no face means an Ottoman coin, and the common one is the Rashadi. The sovereign is also a touch heavier.
Is a sovereign worth more than an Ottoman lira?
On the same day, usually yes, by a small margin. A sovereign holds about 7.32 grams of gold against roughly 6.6 grams in an Ottoman lira, and the price of a gold coin like either one moves with the daily market.
How do I know for sure which coin I have?
Weight and markings together give it away, and a dealer can confirm it in a moment. Bring your coins in and we will weigh them, identify each one, and tell you what it is worth that day. There is no cost to ask, and no pressure to sell.