I just got a few of the 2014 CML. They are very nice coins on par with the better quality bullion coins out there like Kooks and Perth Lunar's in my view. I have never been a fan of the CML but my opinion has shifted with the 2014 issue....very innovative design. The reason why the Chinese (or anyone else for that matter) might make imitation CML bullion coins could be because high quality graded CML bullion coins fetch a fairly high premium and housed inside a really well made fake slabs, a well made fake bullion 2014 CML could be worth the time and energy for the companies making them to produce them. .
Interesting article. The money that accounts for the decrease in sales of ASE's may be (partially) going to fuel the increase in sales of SCML (silver Canadian Maple Leafs). Afterall, I do think the redesigned SCML has perked interest amongst the stacker / collector community. I think innovation from a major mint like the RCM is bound to be rewarded with increased sales. Good move RCM! .
I have mixed feelings about this. At first, and seen from close by and under an angle (thread starters pic), the coin looks great. But visit the article, there are more pics from a further distance and taken from straight above it. And look again. I can't help it, it just looks weird. I do like some flat surface on a coin. Because that's what makes it blinking, shiny as silver is. Now there is nothing left of it. Frosted has that too, but it's much thinner and flatter and makes it acceptable and still shiny. Then that 'privy mark' (or anti counterfeit? or what was it?) made me first think there was a dent in it, until I realized what it had to be. And I wonder, think I said it before somewhere, that relief is all extra surface. The exposed amount silver increased alot, and if you look at how maples already were prone before, what it's gonna be now? If you handle it (this is a common bullion coin) there is now much more chance for dirt etc to 'stick'. How is that coin gonna look like, after some handling, and compared to other bullion coins? And cleaning, well the options are greatly reduced, silver dip chemical only left. I'm not so sure anymore that I like it. Maybe seeing one for real can make again a difference, I don't know.
Its a Maple Leaf. It's designed for people that buy monster boxes the way most other people buy singles, and security is all its about. I'd imagine the vast bulk of them will never even be unsealed, let alone looked at.
^ Tens of thousands of monster boxes per year per coin issue waiting to be dumped onto the market some day soon...just as many or more ASE monster boxes full of silver 1 oz bullion coins per year waiting for secondary market buyers. There is no shortage of silver bullion to quench even the most ravenous appetite of the current silver investor market. What appears to be getting notable attention from buyers though is high grade 1 oz 2014 silver Maple Leaf coins. APMEX went from selling a few graded MS69 earlier this summer at about the $45.00 range (on eBay) to now listing them for about $90.00 on eBay and slightly less on their own website. . .
I have only ordered four of them, I wanted to get an example of some of the latest security features that could be put on a coin and it seemed a shame just to get one but a bit excessive to get a whole tube, particularly of a coin that might be problematic. If I was going to get a graded slabbed Maple I would wait a few years down the track before buying it. It might cost more but the chances of it developing milk spots will hopefully be lower. The other way is to buy a bunch of graded ones when they are cheaper on release and be prepared for most of them to develop the spots. I think there is a place in most people's stack for the new design Maple, even if only one.
JLizard, interesting strategy regarding buying graded SCML's some years down the road in order to potentially avoid milk spots on slabbed SCML coins because some bought early may develop milk spots over the next X years. The concern I have with this strategy (and it might be because I don't know enough about milk spot development) is that what if you wait X years to buy the graded SCML coins and in X + 1 years it develops milk spots? Then you waited in vain, perhaps. So, my obvious question naturally is, is there a set number of months or years in which milk spots will develop and then after that specific amount of time, it can be assured that milk spots will not develop? If it doesn't matter on the conditions silver bullion coins are stored, could we even go as far as to say that for a particular coin issue (let's say 2014 SCML's as just an example), it's almost certain that every 2014 SCML that will develop milk spots (let's say 30% for argument sake...what the actual percentage is I don't know) will not develop any of those spots in a narrow time span not much far off from any other 2014 SCML which will soon or already has developed the spots? In other words, if we see a year down the road a bunch of 2014 SCML coins that then recently developed milk spots, can we fairly say that after another 6 more months, any 2014 SCML that has exhibited no milk spots can not (or will not) develop milk spots? If there is no formula, no set amount of time variance between the same coin issue developing milk spots, perhaps waiting a few years may not necessarily be prudent if we are certain that premiums on high graded copies are predictably going to go up from a time when we have the opportunity to currently buy. .
Apologies for the off-topic question, but what could trigger those with large holdings of silver coins to liquidate?
You can call me Lizzie, Maggie used to! I don't think that information will be forthcoming from the RCM so it will be down to collectors to gather this information. And yes, without a definite endpoint for milk spotting to occur, it will always be a bit of a gamble buying Maples and trying to give them a numismatic value, the same with many of their bullion products. If you succeed, an MS70 without milk spots, then you have hit the jackpot I guess, can't be too many of them around despite the large number minted. If you are not a gambler then I would not even attempt to buy or grade them. One of the data collection problems is that you have people hoping that by keeping the coins sealed in the tube and never opening it that they might somehow stop the development of milk spots, of course you can't know if that strategy has worked until you open the tube to check, thus exposing the coins to the air, Schrodinger's Coin. Many monster boxes will never be checked even once, let alone over a period of time so even if we got all the members to chip in with information, we would only have data from a small percentage of the coins. I would be happy to check my four 2014s periodically until they develop milk spots. I also have one from 2011, so I can check that as well. And if they change their washing procedure half way through the year it might affect the way the coins develop faults even though they are still dated the same. All in all I don't think we would gather enough data to make an informed decision but you have enough people playing the lottery to show that this is not necessarily important.
Points well argued Lizzie. I agree, I don't think that there can ever really be a definitive answer as to the milk spots questions I pondered about. Still, I wonder if milk spots can develop after let's say 3 years? Or 10 years or more? I would think that the spots would likely develop within a few short years max because these spots are allegedly not affected by storage conditions and so in my view, the chemical reaction that causes them to be visible probably has a half-life (for the lack of a better term) and yet that half-life can still vary somewhat depending on how poorly the QC was of a particular batch of coins. And don't bother (unless you want to for your own interest) on my account to check your RCM silver bullion coins. Hopefully, yours will never develop spots! Some may think I am fixated on something trivial but I see it as simply trying to understand a somewhat complex problem that affects many bullion coins from various mints. The stacker in me looks for the lowest premium blob of silver at a very low spot price. I haven't gone all in on blobs yet because I believe we may break the $18 USD resistance mark over the next year. When that happens, it could be a look-out-below situation where fear of a deep bottom brings the spot down to $14 or something like that. Then at that point I will forgo the collector silver coins and go for the blobs (unless the premiums get ridiculously high at that point). Until then, I am on the lookout for the occasional nice collector coin and I do have some interest in hi graded slabbed silver CML's. MS69 looks to be the highest grade available to average buyers like me. MS70 is virtually non-existent for these bullion coins in any year (unless you are okay with a TPG other than NGC or PCGS). .
