1856 4 ducats

[Aaron larsen]

I just acquiredthis gold 4 ducats . Wondering how much the pendant hole will affect the grade . Anyone of any ideas of what the grade could be?

[Aaron larsen]

[BillJones]

A hole is perhaps the worst defect a coin can have, unless it is supposed to be there. I collect 19th century presidential campaign medalets. Many of those pieces had a hole so that people could wear them like modern campaign buttons. In those cases the hole is okay although some collectors disagree with me.

Unfortunately most of the time a hole like this reduces the value of the coin to its melt value.

[Aaron larsen]

Do you think it's still worth sending it in? I have seen other Austrian coins turned into pendants and they were still given a higher grade since it was a custom at the time to wear them as jewlery 

Here is a 1914 that is being auctioned starting at 750 .

[BillJones]

I didn't collect Austrian coins. What you can do is check the price catalogs, or Google the coin to see if it is a major rarity that has a significant collector following. To be worth very much over the melt value, a coin like this needs to be rare and have a strong market to support it. If it does not have those things, it is worth melt or less. 

What I just wrote applies to old American gold coins. The same thing is true here.

I just Googied this coin and found that a piece graded AU-58 by NGC sold for $7,050. That a nice price, but that coin was not holed. I still that the piece you are considering is not worth much over melt. There is a big difference between an AU-58 and a piece with a hole, especially with gold which almost always collected in high grade.