Specifically, certain gold and silver coins, while from a legal point of view still in circulation as legal tender, may have a higher value based on the price of its precious metal than their face value as legal tender. A question has arisen with regard to how certain gold and silver coins (under 71.18) are actually used.
In practice this means that Comtrade excludes everything under HS codes 7108.90 due to their functions as legal tender (see definitions below).ħ1.08 Gold (including gold plated with platinum) unwrought or in semi-manufactured forms, or in powder form.ħ118.10 Coin (other than gold coin), not being legal tenderĢ. According to IMTS 2010, monetary gold (as defined in BPM6) and issued banknotes and securities and coins in circulation are excluded from merchandise trade statistics.
