Russian Silver: Actual Weight?

[Revenant]

I stumbled across some interesting coins on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=160327401129

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=160327385937

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=160327395841

 

I'm having trouble trying to figure out if these coins have a total gross weight of 31.1 grams (making their silver weight less than 1 troy ounce) or if the 31.1 grams is just an indication of silver weight and the actual gross weight is more like 33 or 34 grams.

 

If they contain 31.1 grams of silver (and are a little heavy with copper) then I'd love to add some coins like this to my signature set. If they're only 31.1 grams total (and only about 27 of that is silver) then I'm not interested. Does anyone know for sure which is the case?

[physics-fan3.14]

Krause says, as I expected, that they each contain 1 oz ASW. The markings on coins pretty much always indicate the precious metal content, not the total weight.

[Bugmann1974]

I don't have the book for the first or the third one but the second one shows to be 34.5600 grams total weight in the Krause book.

[RI AL]

The third coin (the one with the seates lady) has, according to World Coins, 2001 to date, 1.0093 ounces of silver. I agree that the others are 1 ounce.

 

The thing that concerns me about these is that the prices for the coins seem a bit out of wack. Maybe the third one at $50 (lists at $32.50) is not too bad. I can't help with the "mountain coin" but the second one with the ballet dancer at $60 is $20 over catalog value of $40 though the mintage is 40,000.

 

They are all 3 beautiful pieces but I wonder if you hunt around a bit if you couldn't find them for less? Just a thought.

 

RI AL

[jackson64]

From experience I can say that there is a hot market for Russian coins....when my search for sailing ship themed coins overlaps with Russian coin collectors I usually get seriously outbid...the catalog values in Krause are way under valued for a lot of the Russian moderns...

[Revenant]

Well, I like the coins and would like to try and acquire examples at some point, but I'm not convinced that this seller is the way to go. Not only are the prices fairly stiff, but he charges $20.00 for shipping and he doesn't openly offer combined shipping. To top things off, his reply to a question of mine was in English, but only just barely.

 

He's currently the only seller I've seen on eBay offering most of these coins, and he's the only offering any of them that claims to be from the US. I haven't seen them offered elsewhere.

 

For the moment, I'm aware of these coins and would like to get them, but I'm going to pass on them while I work on other parts of my set and look for better opportunites.