Does anyone have a good or bad idea why with so many private mints in the US, none of them try to emulate the Perth Mint's success with original designed collector series coins? For that matter, are there any private mints world wide that produce collector series coins that even come close to Perth's. As not only a stacker, but a collector as well, it seems that choice is very limited, especially if you look at .999 silver mintage. Any thoughts on why no one else, besides a few Gov't Mints, at least try to create series coins for collectors?
I am really interested in the stuff from the Mayer mint since I saw a youtube on a guy's collection. One of the coins he had was a Bhutan coin, which was struck by the Mayer Mint: http://www.mayermint.com/MayermintShop/NumismaticsShop/numismatics.asp I just can't find anywhere that you can buy from. I was especially interested in the Buddha series that they had. Anyone seen any coins from this mint before???
I'm showing my international ignorance here,but i thought you guys had the Franklin Mint~There products are top notch! REDBACK
I LOVE those Buddha coins. I registered, but their site seems buggy, I can't pull up their e-store. have to try and call them in the morning. Thanks for hipping me to Mayer!
I'm not trying to nit-pick (bolding in above quote is mine), rather, whilst understanding the broad spectrum of your question, I give myself pause to point out a couple of salient facts (as far as I understand them, anyway). You ask why a Private Mint doesn't do the same as an official Government Mint in creating nice coins... coins can only be made by a Government Mint (as in, legal tender coins). Private Mints, for all the obvious reasons, are unable under law in USA or Australia (and many other countries) to produce legal tender (current discussions over Ben "the printer" Bernanke and his ilk aside) ;-) So I think it's fair only to compare apples to apples, and on that note, the US Mint certainly would have the capability to produce differing coins and series - but it does seem all they produce are the American Silver Eagles. In reality, I am sure that is not all they have in their full catalog, but the rest of the items they produce is certainly not well known here in Australia. Conversely, when speaking to most PM bugs in the US, it seems there is wide knowledge of many of the different coins that are made by the Perth Mint, and most all of them seem to be highly sought by bugs overseas (I am guessing because of their relative scarcity and unique designs).
Interesting you should ask that question. At the Perth meet at the Mint for the Dragon launch, a question was asked about coin design. It seems that while designs for coins out to the 2014 mintage are in design/approval process for silver and gold coins, it has been decided to leave the Platinum platypus unchanged. Why? Because international dealers find it easier, particularly in the USA, to move the coins with only the year change to distinguish mintages. In fact one dealer (?) in the USA takes almost all the platinum mintage (thank god the lunar series is in gold and silver! Imagine the fuss of distributing the dragon based on previous orders if it was done in platinum!!!) Anyway, it seems US dealers are convinced they can sell the same design coins year after year. And since that's what people are accustomed to, that's what they buy. Congratulations 940 on being a standout individual with taste!!!
Good on the mint for not wanting to confuse the rest of the world with a platypus swimming the other way. :/ Seems a bit boring to me.
Aye, that I did I may well be mistaken, if so, I would love for someone to point this out to me, but I still don't see how the Perth Mint is comparable to (say) the Franklin Mint... Perth Mint (quoted from website): The history of The Perth Mint started with the founding of the Perth branch of Britain's Royal Mint in 1899. At the time, gold sovereigns and half sovereigns were used throughout the British Empire as everyday circulating coins and it was the Royal Mint's responsibility to supply them. Rather than shipping gold to London and then distributing them back to Britain's colonies, the Royal Mint built a number of branch mints throughout the Empire in places where gold was found. The Perth Mint was one of these built to refine gold mined in Western Australia and turn it into sovereigns. When sovereigns were withdrawn from circulation in 1931, the Mint used its skills in the production of other coins, while still continuing to refine gold. It remained under British ownership until 1970 when control passed to the Western Australian Government, who owns it to this day. Gold Corporation was created under its own Act of Parliament (Gold Corporation Act 1987) to take over the operations of the Mint and launch Australia's official bullion coin program. Franklin Mint (quoted from website): The Franklin Mint was founded in 1964 when it began striking legal tender coins for foreign countries, as well as commemorative medallions, casino tokens and precious metal ingots. Eventually, the product line was expanded to include the sculptures, deluxe games, precision die-cast models, beautiful collector dolls and more sought-after collectibles for which the Mint is now world famous. From the above (and whilst the Franklin Mint blurb talks about legal tender coins, note that it is for foreign countries, not the USA), I deduce the following: (1) Franklin Mint is a private business/company, that has set itself up to do business producing items from various materials, including Gold and Silver, but has no "affiliation" or "authority" from the US Government to create any item of legal tender (coin etc). In fact, anyone with access to the right expertise, and enough start up capital, could effectively launch a business of the same type, as a direct competitor to the Franklin Mint, and compete on equal terms. (2) The Perth Mint is effectively a wholly owned "subsidiary" of the Westen Australian government, and has the authority from the government to craft not only items of art, but legal tender (coins) in Australia. No-one, without an Act of Parliament, despite having access to the right expertise, and enough start up capital, could hope to compete with the Perth Mint with regard to releasing anything in the legal tender space. Based on that, and the fact that you mentioned coins (which implied to me legal tender, and is in fact most of the items that the Perth Mint produce), I thought it was a bit of an unfair comparison (though not unfair if comparing Perth Mint to the US Mint or - for example, the Canadian Mint - as these three organisations have the legal, government mandated ability and rights to produce legal tender for the country they are domiciled in). It may all come down to me misunderstanding your meaning or interpretation on the meaning of a few things - slap me upside the head and tell me I'm missing something if so I hope the above explains a bit better how I'm interpreting what you mean - and I've probably got a few misinterpretations in there myself
No misunderstanding on your part, I just slapped myself for being what we call here in the colonies a dumb@ss for not knowing Perth was owned by Govt. On a separate note, I say Franklin Smanklin, they don't produce collectible numismatic bullion they produce pieces for non-numismatic collectors. It's more like art, less like coins, hence the the cheapest .999 oz costing 2 1/2 times spot. There are a dozen or more Mints here that produce bullion coins, but nothing that compares to Perth...or the other Govt Mints. So, I guess my question is, why with so many Mints producing bullion coins or rounds if it suits y'all, why such generic product. Why don't they create more artistic, creative dies, put out yearly series like other Mints, albeit govt ones?
