And if you stretch them(so they don't unseat at full droop), you change the angle of the spiral, and they become stiffer.Both springs were brand new? Or were the golds well used? As springs get over compressed and then stretched out again, the spring can become damaged and feel softer...
I was comparing a bunch of springs, stretched vs non, old vs new, just trying to get a matched set. Here's what I came up with:
Take your wife's digital kitchen scale, set 2 objects that are the same height on either side of it. Ideally, they will be 1" shorter than the spring, when the spring is sitting upright in the middle of the scale. Use something to bridge between the objects(I used the spine of a book), and compress the spring that 1 inch, read your scale. It will give you the spring rate per inch of compression.