Silver: a Britannia is 11% over spot, a 1kg bar 26%
In short
- At 06:50 Sofia time silver was £38.28 an ounce (−1.4% in 24 hours); the cheapest 1oz Britannia is £42.48 – 11.0% over spot.
- A 1kg bar starts at £1,552, 26.1% over spot – so in the UK today the bigger unit is not the cheaper one per gram.
- £1,000 buys 812.6g at spot, but 732g in the cheapest Britannia and 644g in the cheapest 1kg bar.
Silver fell 1.4% in 24 hours to £38.28 an ounce (06:50 Sofia time), but a dealer’s price is another matter: the cheapest 1oz Britannia is £42.48 – 11.0% over spot – and a 1kg bar starts at £1,552, 26.1% over.
What happened
At £38.28 an ounce, £1,000 would buy 812.6g of silver at spot. A dealer adds a premium for minting, delivery and margin, and VAT may be included in listed silver prices. In HawkValue data (dealer prices at 06:19) the cheapest listed offers are: Royal Mint Britannia 2027, 1oz, £42.48 (+11.0%); Gold.co.uk 1oz bar £44.80 (+17.0%); Gold.co.uk 100g bar £144.60 (+17.5%); Gold.co.uk 1kg bar £1,552 (+26.1%).
The buy-back gap is the second cost, but not every dealer lists a buy price. Where it is listed, Baird & Co sells a 1oz Britannia at £49.32 and buys it back at £37.26 – a gap of 24.5%, so silver would need to rise 32.4% to break even. Its 1kg bar is £1,574.48 against £1,198.08 (gap 23.9%, break-even +31.4%); Tavex UK has £1,605.74 against £1,205.74 (24.9%, +33.2%). The cheapest offers by sell price, Royal Mint and Gold.co.uk, show no buy-back price in our data, so their round-trip cost cannot be calculated. The break-even figures are arithmetic on listed prices, not a forecast for silver.
What it means for you
The maths: £1,000 at spot is 812.6g of silver. In the cheapest Britannia it is 23.5 coins, or 732g; in the cheapest 1kg bar it is 644g – about 21% less metal than the spot equivalent.
The “bigger is cheaper” rule from gold does not hold for silver here today: the cheapest coin is 11.0% over spot and the cheapest 1kg bar 26.1%. Gold bars, for comparison, are between 2.1% and 4.4% over spot this morning. Compare all offers on UK silver prices and UK gold prices.
A quick check before you compare dealers is the price per gram. The Britannia works out at £1.37 a gram, the 1kg bar at £1.55 and spot at £1.23. Check whether VAT and delivery are included in each price before you compare.
Bottom line
Silver’s premium over spot is 11–26% today against 2–4% for gold bars. These are listed prices this morning, not a forecast.
Sources: HawkValue data – spot at 06:50, dealer prices at 06:19 (Royal Mint, Gold.co.uk, Baird & Co, Tavex UK) · UK silver prices
Gold prices at UK dealers live →
For information only. This is not investment advice.
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