Gold sovereign of William IV

Pictured here is a gold sovereign of William IV, which is a recent find. The detectorist who unearthed the coin wishes to remain anonymous but asked for a valuation in order to pass on a figure to a landowner.

The coin has the first bust of William IV on the obverse, it is dated 1831and has no stops between or after W W at the base of King William’s neck. Therefore, this is an example of number 3829A in the Standard Catalogue.

In having W W with no stops this is a rare variety. Indeed, I have seen this variety listed as extremely rare. However, after a short search I managed to trace a number of examples so I would suggest it is very rare but not extremely rare.

Valuation

The obverse would grade Fair, the reverse Fine. I traced an example that was sold at auction in December of 2025, which was graded as near UNC and the hammer price was £6,000. I traced another sold late in 2020, which was graded as Fine and the hammer price was £2,500.  The first figure seemed a bit low whereas the second seemed rather high.

Very recently the market for gold reached a record high but quickly dropped by about 10%. The volatility in the market is due mostly to global uncertainties. During times like these money often flows into gold. Therefore, the recent shift upwards in the price of gold coins is due not to an increase in the number of collectors; the rise in the price of gold coins is because of the upward shift in the price of gold bullion on the international market.

My valuation figure on this find would be £1,500-1,800. However, significant fluctuations in the gold bullion price could lead to an increase or decrease in my estimate.

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