What you will learn
In the previous lesson we saw that a coin's price has two parts: the "intrinsic value" of the gold inside it, and something called the "premium" (in Persian, hobab) that the market adds on top. This lesson opens up that second part. You will learn how to build a coin's intrinsic value step by step from two global numbers (the gold ounce and the dollar), see the simple premium formula, practise it on a hypothetical worked example, and finally understand why the coin premium in Iran widens and narrows. No prior knowledge is needed; every term is defined where it first appears.
Definitions
Intrinsic value. The value of the gold inside the coin, with nothing added. That is, if you melted the coin, weighed only its pure gold, and sold it at today's price, this is what it would be worth.
Coin premium (hobab). The gap between a coin's market price and its intrinsic value. If a coin trades higher than the value of the gold inside it, that difference is the premium. The premium is not always positive; in rare cases it can be zero or even negative.
Troy ounce. The unit in which gold is quoted on the global market, priced in dollars. One troy ounce equals 31.1035 grams.
Coin purity (ayar). The share of pure gold in the coin's total weight. The full Emami and Bahar Azadi coins are both 900 parts per 1,000: that is, 900 out of every 1,000 units of weight are pure gold. A full coin weighs about 8.133 grams, so its pure gold is roughly 7.32 grams (8.133 times 0.9).
How to build a coin's intrinsic value
The intrinsic value is built from three numbers, in three steps:
- Step one, the price of one gram of pure gold in dollars: divide the global ounce price by 31.1035 to get the price of one gram of 24-karat gold in dollars.
- Step two, convert to tomans: multiply the step-one figure by the free-market dollar rate (in tomans) to get the price of one gram of pure gold in tomans.
- Step three, multiply by the coin's gold weight: multiply the step-two figure by the coin's pure-gold weight (about 7.32 grams for a full coin). The result is the coin's intrinsic value.
Notice that intrinsic value depends only on two global variables: the gold ounce and the dollar rate. Neither has anything to do with the decisions of coin buyers and sellers in Tehran, which is why intrinsic value is treated as the coin's "logical floor."
The premium formula
Once you have the intrinsic value, the premium is a simple subtraction:
Premium (tomans) = market price of the coin minus its intrinsic value
Because coins have different prices, the premium is usually also stated as a percentage so it can be compared:
Premium percent = (premium divided by the coin's market price) times 100
The percentage matters more than the toman figure: a premium of 5 million tomans on a coin worth 180 million (under 3 percent) is very different from the same 5 million on a coin worth 50 million (10 percent).
A worked example
Let us practise the formula with numbers. Note that the figures below are entirely hypothetical and only for learning, not today's real price.
Suppose the global gold ounce is 4,000 dollars and the free-market dollar rate is 180,000 tomans:
- Price of one gram of pure gold in dollars: 4,000 divided by 31.1 is about 128.6 dollars.
- Price of one gram of pure gold in tomans: 128.6 times 180,000 is about 23,150,000 tomans.
- Intrinsic value of a full coin: 7.32 times 23,150,000 is about 169,500,000 tomans.
Now suppose that same coin trades in the market at 178,000,000 tomans. Then:
- Premium: 178,000,000 minus 169,500,000 is 8,500,000 tomans.
- Premium percent: 8,500,000 divided by 178,000,000 is about 4.8 percent.
So in this hypothetical example, the coin buyer pays about 4.8 percent more than the value of the gold inside it. If the ounce or the dollar rises tomorrow while the coin's market price stays flat, the intrinsic value goes up and the premium shrinks; and the reverse.
In Iran's market
To see how large these figures are in practice: on Sunday, 21 Tir 1405 (July 12, 2026), based on Sahmino data, the Emami coin traded around 178,500,000 tomans and its premium was near 4,140,000 tomans, that is about 2.3 percent of the price. This figure changes every day and even every hour; for the live number you can check the Emami coin premium and coin prices pages.
But why does a premium exist at all? A few main reasons:
- Minting fee and costs: minting a coin at the central bank's mint has a cost, and this is a small part of the coin's ever-present premium.
- Safe-haven demand: on turbulent days, people rush into coins to preserve the value of their money; high demand pushes the coin price ahead of its intrinsic value.
- Expectations about the future: if the market expects the dollar or the ounce to rise, it is willing to pay more for a coin right now; the premium in fact absorbs part of the market's inflation expectation.
- Supply and policy intervention: when coin supply is limited the premium widens, and when the policymaker supplies coins through auctions, the premium usually contracts. The mechanics of these auctions are the subject of a separate lesson later in this course.
One more point: the premium on smaller coins (half, quarter, and gram) is usually larger than on the full coin, because the minting fee is heavier relative to their gold weight. To get better acquainted with coin types and how each one's price is built, you can return to the previous lesson on gold and coin types.
Common mistakes
Mistake one, "a premium means the coin is expensive." The premium only measures distance from intrinsic value, not whether the coin is cheap or expensive in absolute terms. A coin can be very expensive with a high ounce and dollar yet carry a small premium.
Mistake two, "the premium must burst." A premium widening and narrowing is a normal market phenomenon; a larger premium alone is not a prediction of a crash, and a smaller one is not necessarily a buying opportunity. This lesson teaches the calculation method, not a buy or sell recommendation.
Mistake three, comparing the toman premium instead of the percentage. Do not directly compare the toman premium of two coins with different prices; always look at the premium percent so the comparison is fair.
Summary
We build a coin's intrinsic value in three steps from the global ounce and the dollar, and the premium is simply the gap between the market price and this intrinsic value; the premium percent makes that gap comparable. The premium is built from the minting fee, safe-haven demand, inflation expectations, and the supply situation, and it changes constantly. Now that you have the formula, you can calculate the coin premium yourself every day. To review Sahmino's other foundational lessons, visit the Learn page.
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