By Rory Hall
Over the past few weeks a number of new silver coins have come online and I wanted to bring them to your attention. If you recall at the end of 2016 I wrote several articles about the more “collectible” silver coins that are available to anyone that is willing to take a chance on some really beautiful coins. The one coin that stands out from the earlier series is the America the Beautiful “Hawaii Volcanoes” coin. It now commands a massive premium to spot and people are more than willing to pay it. What will be the next coin to find itself in this same position?
This series began with Silver: Power to the People, which simply looked at the wide variety of coins whose premiums seem to always rise regardless of what the silver market was doing. The next article, Silver: Pirates, Oligarchs and Freedom, focused on two privately minted silver coin/medallion series that seem to always create a stir for one reason or another. The Privateer series and Silver Shield Silver Bullet series both burst onto the silver coin market and immediately grabbed people’s attention. These two coin/medallion series still have peoples attention and the premiums keep rising.
The third in the series is where we dove a little deeper and reviewed some of the truly collector coins. These coins/medallions were produced as collectibles, with small mintage, increasing demand and entered the market with an above-average premium. Silver: Art You Can Spend focuses on beautiful, spendable art in coin form that has taken a page from history to deliver some truly stunning coins.
Now that we have provided a series to help you determine if the “coin collecting” aspect of stacking silver really works for your goals we are going to simply focus on new coins, bars and medallions as they come to market. It would be impossible to cover all that are new to the market, so we are going to focus on the products we like and, odds are, have added to our own stack. The art of silver is an art form that, personally, resonates with me and I feel confident with you as well. Otherwise, the premiums on some of these coins would not explode to the upside and live there at elevated levels.
First up this years Lunar Series II, Year of the Rooster. Yes, we covered the 2016 Kookaburra coin series but the Lunar Series is completely different. The coins change each year and are based the Chinese Zodiac. There are 12 different animal spirits the Chinese look to and these animal spirits are connected to the people that were born under the symbol of the corresponding year. There is only the one coin each year so it takes 12 years for the entire series to come online. The popularity of these coins has exploded over the past few years and makes these coins a must-have for any serious coin collector.
Pictured above is the 10-ounce 2017 Year of the Rooster. This series of coins offers a range of sizes from 1/2 ounce, 1 ounce, 2 ounce, 5 ounce, 10 ounce and 1 kilo. The 1-ounce coin is limited to 300,000 and the 1 kilo also has a specified mintage – this year is 100 units, with all other sizes being unlimited mintage. While the other sizes, outside the 1 ounce and 1 kilo, have an unlimited mintage they typically sell far below 300,000 units. Typically, this will impact the premiums as time goes by. It is not uncommon for the “off sized” coins to command much higher premiums than the 1-ounce coin. The kilo coins can reach significantly higher premiums as well, but, typically, the premiums move higher at a slower pace than the other coin sizes. Having the entire set of all sizes can help with the collector aspect. Some collectors want all the coin sizes in the series and this will typically mean a higher premium for all the coins.
Fredrick Douglas
America the Beautiful (ATB) coins are another coin series that is quickly gathering a larger following. This series of 5-ounce coins, produced by the US Mint, are released throughout the year. Each coin is different and represents one of the national parks. Personally, I have a fond affection for this series as the artwork is outstanding and the image usually portrays an historical figure. So, far, I have been able to collect all 2016, a couple of the previous years, with plans on collecting more, along with the two that have been released in 2017. There will be 3 more coins to come online in 2017. The ATB coins have a limited mintage of 120,000 per coin in the series. Most of the coins that have been released have not reached the maximum mintage making them all the more collectable. The series, that began in 2010, will end in 2022 with a total of 60 coins produced. Having all 60 coins would be a great collection and I feel confident will command a very high premium, especially with some of the individual coins already commanding more than 100% premium to spot price of silver.
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Recently, I have been collecting some of the much smaller privately minted medallions. These have been added to the stack for fun and because they are beautiful coins that offer something a little different than the typical 1 ounce medallion/round that seem to be everywhere.
Salivate Metal
Salivate Metal (SM), Multitude of Furtitude coin fits the bill nicely. SM operates a YouTube Channel of the same name and provides commentary on the silver coin market. He decided to produce a medallion just for fun and what he produced is pretty cool. The cat image is due to the fact that his cats will make an appearance in a lot of his videos. It is a 999 silver bullion coin with a very low mintage and comes in an off size of one and three-quarter ounces. Slightly thicker than the typical coin or round with impressive artwork. Will this coin garner enough interest to break free of the “generic” classification? Only time will tell, but that is not the reason I added this one to the stack. I like the artwork and I like the fact that it is an off-sized medallion.
Silver coins are cool and in some cases can be profitable. In a lot cases they can be stunningly beautiful. In 100% of the coins lies the main reason to add silver to your future goals – silver is money and has been money longer than gold. It is also in short supply and being used, as a commodity, in ever increasing ways. So, get out there and find some coins that you like and begin your own adventure in collecting. Let us know what you think – rorytdc@hushmail.com
You can read more from Rory Hall at his site The Daily Coin, where this article first appeared.
I don’t know….but I heard that they all make the same sound hitting the crucible.