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Silver Britannia 1/2 oz — ping test & specs

The half-ounce Silver Britannia (2011, reintroduced 2025) is a 27 mm .999 bullion coin. Silver rings high at this size: only the fundamental stays within phone-mic range, so this is a single-mode reference.

Opens the free tester with this coin preselected — audio never leaves your device.

Official specifications

Weight15.552 g
Diameter27 mm
Composition.999 fine silver

Source: The Royal Mint. Coin Pinger checks measured weight and diameter against these values.

Expected resonance range

High confidence*
ModeExpected ringRecommended variance
c0d28.98–10.23 kHz±6.5%

A genuine Silver Britannia 1/2 oz rings within these ranges at its c0d2 vibration modes, fixed by its size and metal. The recommended variance is how far a genuine specimen's ring can sit from each center — built up in quadrature from real manufacturing tolerance and temperature (under 1%), phone-mic capture reproducibility (≈4%), an extra allowance on the fundamental for minting-asymmetry splitting, and a per-metal model-uncertainty term (largest for .9999 gold, whose modulus is least certain). The higher modes also carry a small thick-plate centre correction, since a real coin is not infinitely thin. The high-confidence tag reflects how well-established this metal's constants are: Computed from well-established silver elastic constants and cross-checked against same-size sibling coins. These are guidance bands, not exact values — see the methodology for the exact formula, or calibrate your own coin in the app for a specimen-exact reference and tighten each peak per coin.

Single-mode note: silver rings high at this size, so only the fundamental stays under the 20 kHz phone-mic ceiling — this is a one-peak reference. Pair it with the weight and diameter checks.

* These are computed guidance ranges. Certain your Silver Britannia 1/2 oz is genuine but it won't match? Send us its ring — we'll dig in and improve the reference.

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How to ping test a Silver Britannia 1/2 oz

  1. Hold — grip the coin by its center (a nodal point) in a coin ping-test holder so the rim rings freely; a fingertip at the center is a last resort.
  2. Tap — strike the edge with a striker near the microphone.
  3. Read the verdict — MATCH or NO MATCH against the peaks above, plus weight and size checks.

Silver Britannia 1/2 oz — frequently asked

How much does a Silver Britannia 1/2 oz weigh?

The official specification is 15.552 g in .999 fine silver (source: The Royal Mint). Coin Pinger's weight check allows ±0.3 g by default.

What size is a Silver Britannia 1/2 oz?

27 mm in diameter, per The Royal Mint. Note the average disc thickness is less than the rim caliper reading — the raised rim and relief concentrate metal at the edge.

What frequency does a genuine Silver Britannia 1/2 oz ring at?

Its fundamental (c0d2) vibration mode is computed to ring in the 8.98–10.23 kHz range. These are first-principles physics computations from the coin's published mass, diameter, and metal — not measurements of sample coins.

Why does my genuine Silver Britannia 1/2 oz ring slightly off the listed frequencies?

Phone-mic capture moves a genuine peak a few percent tap-to-tap — strike point, holding pressure, and the microphone's own response all matter. Temperature and normal minting tolerance add under 1%. The published band already allows for all of this; for a tighter reference, calibrate your own genuine Silver Britannia 1/2 oz in the app.

Does ping testing damage a Silver Britannia 1/2 oz?

No — the test needs only a light tap on the edge with a non-marring striker (a wooden pencil or plastic stylus works well), far gentler than normal handling. Hold the coin at its center so the rim can ring freely.

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The physics of the Silver Britannia 1/2 oz ping

That peak isn't random. When you strike the coin it flexes as a free disc in fixed patterns called vibration modes — 0 nodal circles with 2 nodal diameters, written c0d2. Each pattern rings at one frequency.

Where those frequencies land is set by the coin's geometry and metal. For a thin disc, frequency ∝ (thickness ÷ diameter²) × √(stiffness ÷ density). This Silver Britannia 1/2 oz spreads 15.552 g of .999 fine silver across 27 mm — an effective disc thickness of about 2.6 mm once the raised rim and relief are averaged out — which puts its fundamental (c0d2) near 9605 Hz.

An ideal thin disc's higher modes sit at fixed, geometry-only multiples of the fundamental (c0d3 at ≈2.33×, c0d4 at ≈4.11×) — but for a coin this small they land above the 20 kHz phone-mic ceiling, so this reference pins the fundamental alone. Coin Pinger still rejects taps whose spectrum doesn't look like a struck disc (keys, glass, a coin lying on a hard surface).

And it's why a fake can't hide: change the metal and √(E/ρ) changes, so every mode moves. Struck in lead or a plated base metal instead, the ring would land far lower and die out with a dull, short thud — its c0d2 would land near ≈4250 Hz instead of 9605 Hz. Density can fool a scale; the ring can't be faked without the right metal.

We publish this as a High confidence reference. Computed from well-established silver elastic constants and cross-checked against same-size sibling coins.

Free-plate modes per A. W. Leissa, Vibration of Plates, NASA SP-160 (1969, public domain). See how we measure them →