The mintage of the Lunar Dragon is now technically 500,000+ and future issues are likely to remain at that level With the mouse, ox, tiger and rabbit capped at 300,000 I think these coins are going to be ones showing the highest appreciation rates in the future. The tiger and ox is now priced much higher than the dragon with the rabbit closing in A little over a year ago the mouse was the most desirable series 2 coin until they went back and reminted another 100,000+ coins. Will it be happy days again for mice owners; I hope so!
I have learned something important about holding Lunars in my personal stack. Trying to predict the future value of a particular lunar year is no longer possible if the Perth Mint keeps bending the rules to maximise its profits. 13 months ago the Mouse was top dog; followed by the Tiger, Ox and Rabbit. Currently its the Ox, Tiger, Dragon, Rabbit and Mouse. What's your forecast in a year's time? My guess is the Tiger, Ox , Rabbit, Mouse, Dragon and Snake.
i think the tiger has already started to overtake the ox going by the recent ebay sales. oxen around 55-65 mark.
Who knows. Nobody knows. :/ Series 1 Dragons had the highest mintage of any Series 1 Lunar, yet command the highest premium now.
I should have flipped the Dragons for a quick profit but I got them at the Perth mint prices and so far I have turned three of them into presents which went down really well so I have already got my value out of them! If I bother to go online for 2 hours of crashes for the Snakes I will not hold on to them, Dragons are cool, snakes not so much. Might sell the snakes and buy the dragons!
ah yes forgot about that set too I personally think that the original 300k Bullion dragons will still in the long run outperform all other lunars
Agreed. Its good to give them as presents. I've given away a roll of tigers & over 2/3 of a roll of dragons, and people really love them, and its a great way to introduce people to precious metals. And it does yield fruit in some cases, as they then start to invest themselves and research precious metals. This is factual, from my dealings with others in the short time I've been gifting silver. So any SS who's not doing it (undoubtedly many of you do), give it a try. You might find you like it
This is bad omen. There are 2 terrible mistakes on the coin. Allow me to explain.... Firstly, the lion privy dragon coin has something terribly missing.... You guessed it, the dragon pearl (also commonly known as Dragon ball, Note: not the Super Saiyan variant). The dragon pearl often represents the soul or spiritual self of the dragon. Without it, a dragon is not immortal and thus cannot ascend to heaven (more like a common snake in this sense). Unlike dragons from other culture, this dragon pearl is thus an essential if not critical of any Chinese dragon. A dragon can often be seen chasing after it or led by it. The popular Dragon Dance for example, depicted this enactment of a dragon chasing after its dragon pearl. Secondly, the lion privy replaced the dragon pearl with a .... er... lion. As we ALL know, lions were never native to China. It was brought in through trade to China from other asian countries such as India and Persia. In fact, the Chinese word for lions (shi ) shares the same etymological roots as the Persian word "Shiar". In replacement, the Chinese (saw) the tiger as the king of animals. Also why you have a tiger instead of a lion on the Chinese horoscope. The Lion Dance, though now a traditional Chinese art, depicts a heavily modified visualisation of the (then) mythological lion. That's also why it looks nothing like the real lion. In many chinese idioms, the animal put in context with the dragon is usually the tiger (i.e. literally translates to competition between a dragon and a tiger; the idiom actually means fierce battle between two very strong opponents, which can be used to describe good sportsmanship). It's probably just me; if you look at the original coin, the dragon looks thrilled to see its dragon pearl. On the privy coin, I think the lion is in some deep trouble (pun intended). Just my 2 oz. Revlisify
Do we know who designed the dragon? Was it done with any cultural references to China at all. Any input from any Chinese scholars or academics, or people? Google Images? From what I understand, and I am not Chinese nor interested in horoscopes, the Year of the Mouse should be the Year of the Rat, but rats are ugly and diseased in Western eyes, and the Year of the Rabbit should be the Year of the Hare, but Rabbits are cuter. I see no reason why the Perth Mint would know or care about any of the design elements, I get the impression that their target market is not made up of Chinese people who would know the difference. Anyway I look forward to seeing Perth Mint's Lunar Year of the Phoenix taking over from the Year of the Rooster (Phoenixes are cool, well hard, animals that everyone likes, roosters can't even give you eggs and are therfore even lamer than chickens). A year of the Scorpion would be cool too, way better than a pig. If the chinese insist on it we can have a pig privy mark on the Year of the Pig coin, just below the massive scorpion!
You can't get chickens without roosters mate. As for scorpion coins. Last year i found a few on the net that were plain and gilded 24k. They looked absolutely brilliant. The NZ mint started to do the horoscope coins but seem to have stopped them. If the P mint did a series of say 2,500-5,000 in gold and Silver I think it would sell out very quick. These coins would be keepers for me anyway. Scorp
Just saying that it would be cool and that once you free yourself from the shackles of tradition and culture you can really open up your horizons and let your imagination run free, and sell a shed load more stuff. Do the Chinese still use the Rat and Hare? Is the change that big a deal to them? Do they know or care? I think Disney popularised it with their Year of the Mouse (Mickey, who else?)
The Chinese word for rat/mouse and rabbit/hare were the same, and remains the same in common modern usage. It is only recent history where words constructs deepened to describe complex biological classes. Neither was the animals defined with their sexuality, thus the (lack of) differentiation between Rooster vs Chicken in the series. The choice of words in the English equivalent were definitely (as you have mentioned) cuter and more marketable variant of the animals in the Lunar series.
