Weight and fineness, as the mints state them
A palladium coin is defined by two numbers: what it weighs, and what fraction of that weight is palladium. The palladium in it is one multiplied by the other. This calculator stores both numbers exactly as each issuing mint prints them and works the palladium out, rather than storing a rounded “1 oz” that could quietly disagree with the specification.
Both coins here are struck at 999.5 parts per thousand, written .9995 or 99.95%. The United States Mint gives the American Palladium Eagle a weight of 1.0005 troy ounces and a composition of 99.95% palladium; the reverse of the coin itself reads “1 OZ. Pd .9995 FINE”. The Royal Canadian Mint gives the Palladium Maple Leaf a weight of 31.11 g at 99.95% palladium.
The US Mint prints the Eagle’s weight in troy ounces only. The grams shown for it are the exact conversion at 31.1034768 g to the troy ounce, not a separate figure from the Mint, and the page labels them that way.
Why the two answers differ in the fourth decimal
Multiplying out the Eagle’s figures gives 1.0005 × 0.9995 = 0.99999975 troy ounces of palladium: one ounce, to well within any scale’s precision. That is the point of the 1.0005 figure. The extra half part per thousand of gross weight carries the half part per thousand of other metal, so the palladium comes out at the stated ounce.
The Maple Leaf’s weight is printed to two decimal places, 31.11 g. Multiplied by 0.9995 it gives 31.094 g of palladium, or 0.9997 troy ounces, a hair under one. That difference comes from rounding in the printed weight, not from the coin holding less metal, and it is shown as calculated rather than tidied to a round number.
Which coins are listed, and which are not
Only coins whose gross weight and fineness were both read from the issuing mint’s own page are listed. Other mints have struck palladium coins, and fractional sizes exist, but none of their specifications was read from a mint source for this tool, and a weight assumed from a coin’s name is not the same thing as the mint’s figure. For any palladium coin or bar not listed, the same arithmetic applies: gross weight times fineness in parts per thousand, divided by 1,000. The platinum and palladium calculator on this site does that for any weight and fineness.
The Eagle figures were read from the US Mint’s American Eagle Palladium programme page. The live usmint.gov site sits behind a bot check, so the page was read from the Internet Archive’s copy captured in February 2021, whose content the Mint marked as last reviewed in August 2020. The Mint’s bullion page for the same coin confirms the one-ounce size and .9995 purity.
What melt value is, and what it is not
The value shown is melt value: the palladium content multiplied by the live palladium spot price. It is a measurement of the metal, in money. It is not what a dealer charges for the coin or pays for it. Bullion coins generally change hands at a premium over their metal, and that premium moves with supply, demand, the dealer, the year and the coin’s condition. Proof and other collector issues can trade far from their metal content in either direction.
This site does not recommend buying, holding or selling coins, and it does not name or rank dealers. The aim is narrower: to show exactly how much palladium a coin contains, so that any figure quoted for it can be compared with the metal underneath.
The price comes from the same live feed as every other value tool on the site. If the feed is down, the calculator shows no value at all rather than an old one. The palladium weights stay correct, because they do not depend on the price.