Lunar coins, but Why?

I dont understand the big deal over lunar coins. Can someone please explain. I'm personnaly more into the American silver eagles and canadian maple leaf, kooks and koala's. But never see the appeal of buying lunar coins (especially since they sell a fair bit over spot)

 

I didn't understand neither ...until I got a 1oz silver snake coin by chance, then I look into in the the series and the more I look the more I want to complete with set. The 1oz, 2oz, 5oz, 10oz, not to mention the Gilded and coloured series. It's an addiction, but I guess that's what collecting is about.

 

From a silver is silver perspective, it doesnt make much sense with the high premium. That's probably suitable in an end-game scenario, while most of us are now caught in a waiting game. It's thus easy to get attracted to the numismatic and semi-numismatic aspect of stacking.

I credit the appeal of Lunars to 2 reasons combined: 1) the fact that you can get a full set by back-chasing only 5 coins, with an visible timeline for the set to be completed, and 2) the combined mintage of the entire 12 lunars (300,000 X 12 = 3,600,000 over 12 years) to be less than many other coins and rounds minted in an entire year.

Of course, the rumours of foreign interest in these coins before they were released contributed as well.

My 2 cents,

Revlisify

 

Why would you hold a penny stock with basically and no assets? Because of expectations of future gains. Simple. Same with Lunars.

 

For me as an asian, it's a cheap present for soneone's birthday. Happy to give a 1oz dragon at $70 a pop than give a $100 red bag ie saving of $30

 

Ive owned metals since mid 08 and had pretty much 100 percent of my metal in various bullion bars, mostly kilo and 100oz because I wanted to pay as close to spot as possible.

Now I buy low premium rounds such as the ones mentioned above because I see the potential for numismatic/collector value. I beleive the 5-20 percent premium paid for rounds is probably worth it, particulary if we are talking about the lower end of the scale (eg AMEs for say 5 percent over spot or PM bullion for 3 percent over spot....hands down I take the rounds)

The other reason is that I invested heavily in silver/gold mid 08, after becoming more financially educated....The gfc vindicated my decision and I was very excited. Over the coming months and years the markets did not react at all how I expected and while I am highly bullish on silver I beleive the powers that be will use every trick in the book before fiat currencies crash alltogether and PMs hit the mania stage... This includes all kinds of money printing, fiddling with bond rates, every other trick they have used thus far and more.

This being the case I think there is a potential for spot prices to be fucked with a _lot_ but coins are much more likely to at least hold their purchase price and become collectable in their own right over time whilst bullion tends to be priced at a percentage above spot. Divisibility never hurts either.

Your question was about which _kind_ of bullion coins though. In all liklihood it probably doesnt matter. Lunars seem to attract a premium due to their mintiges, collectability and popularity of the animal.

Obviously if silver hits 100/oz overnight I dont think my lunar dragon will be worth any more than your AME but depending on how long this drags out the higher premium, low mintige coins could perform better.

 

that is if one is paying at the top dollar without even knowing it. :lol:

for people who get it on the cheap, they could flip the coins and get their roll of twenty foc.

said $5888 was the cost for a case, then flip it at 73.6 each, or sold 80 coins for 5888, the rest of 20 is foc.

I got some of mine foc by flipping coins both ways up and down... was there and did that

 

Big fan of free silver.
I would love to have a few hundred oz of silver that cost me $zero

 

Because of the numi value (within reason) of lunars - you can purchase them closeish to spot (s2 mouse at the moment although that seems to be moving now) and it builds in a bit of a stop loss.

For example if silver drops to $25/oz - you will find that a lot of lunars will not move much at all but your eagles will follow the price down. If silver goes to $50/oz then the lunars will go up accordingly and will maintain a lot of their premium even if silver then tracks back downwards again.

Kooks (and to a degree Koalas) also have this feature although probably not to the same extent. Pandas are a different kettle of fish and I'm not entering that debate other than to say we haven't really seen what long term effect the increase in minting numbers will do yet.

It just adds a bit of a shock absorbor on the downside without limiting the upside.

malachii

 

yes I think malachii is correct, the case with eagles and maples (other than being dull boring coins that never change designs, in my opinion) they will almost never go for much over spot price because they mint so many of them they are always easy to come by. The lunar series are also very high quality coins and the mintages has been so far fairly low, they are also in my opinion very nice looking coins for the most part (except for the old lady side). I dont know exactly why some trends catch on and some dont but I guess it is just the way of mankind, i would definately recomend the perth lunar series if you can get them at a good price....