This caught me by surprise. I thought the series was done. Especially with Elemetal Mint getting busted. While I was searching for the older ones I randomly came across a new page. I ordered some. Glad to see they are still going. I normally don't buy rounds with these kinds of premiums but I absolutely love the series and have just recently been collecting them all.
They were apart of a huge illegal gold mining operation. Billions of dollars in gold was smuggled around the world. I thought that meant the end of the series. But I heard that Provident owns the rights and designs to the series. They are said to be keeping it going and will make sure they find a way to make more if Elemetal is closed down for good. I'm not totally sure of Elemetals long term fate of if they will somehow be able to keep going or go into the abyss like a ship taken by the kraken and white whale!
Reasonable discussion on Elemental (which incidentally is NTR and OPM) with a description on the events that transpired. https://www.coinweek.com/bullion-report/ntr-metals-illegal-south-american-gold/
Latest, I believe, is that CME/COMEX gave them the boot. They were not mining, as suggested in another comment, but smuggling. They were tight with Scotia Bank, one of the two GIANT shorts in PM, but that came undone as well.
Naively I always thought the PM market to be above aboard. But if course where there is money there is greed and corruption. Wasn't it OPM who released the first fully recycled silver round? I also find it confusing how all the companies NTR, Provident, OPM, Elemetal etc are all tied in. I wonder if the lower mintage releases from the above will become even more sought after because the associated infamy.
They were smuggling gold that was illegally mined (or at least a lot of it was). That's why they had to smuggle it. They are paying the crime ring of miners for it so they are essentially keeping it going and supporting it. There are huge area's where organized crime go into public land and start tearing it all up, using dangerous chemicals and destroying everything in the environment to be able to mine cheap and fast. It's pretty horrible.
Dore is a reasonably liquid asset. It would have gone on with or without an outlet to the States. And yes, they use a lot of mercury, in particular, some of which is recovered by distillation from the dore, but most is just lost physically. I remember seeing something in the news, probably over a year ago, in which it was believed that there was a huge money laundering operation in which either transfers were being made to South America to pay for imaginary gold, or maybe just paying way too much for real gold. The big picture was that payments for gold were supposedly being used to get money raised from selling drugs in the USA back to the sources of the drugs without the risk of smuggling huge amounts of physical cash, as well as possibly being able to make the money look legit. I didn't pay a lot of attention to it, and can't say if it related to the same people/companies, etc., but it sure sounds familiar. The whole drug/money laundering part of the story seems to have disappeared if it was the same group.
MCM has these now (storefront, and ebay storefront) for a somewhat decent price over spot. They keep playing the trickle release game on the 5 coin lot, currently "out of stock" for the 4th time now, and counting LOL
bullionnz has the White Whale for pre-purchase on their website. Quite reasonably priced when compared to prices wanted on Ebay. I've ordered only one to keep my set up to date. NZ$79.50
I'm normally not into pirate related rounds. But this series makes me want to get them all. The price is steep though am I'm in the UK.
Look what happens you have some personnel issues don;t check the board for a month or so and bam out comes an issues that you collect. I looked at Provident and they don;t even have it listed. The only place right now is ebay and man they want a lot for this one.
Company that makes pirate coins was busted for smuggling gold? You can't make this stuff up. Glad that I checked this forum. But anyway, that whale coin isn't bad. I'm really uninterested in precious metals, but I'll continue with this line because it's the best series out there.
Hi All, Any idea on where to buy some "The Plank 2 oz Silver Ultra High Relief Round" at a decent price? I have just found that they have released this one and I don't have any.......
