Granted, it's not high relief, but beautiful nevertheless. Not sure why I didn't get a bunch of these back in 2013. Must have been sleeping. :lol: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvNXgWqgSEo[/youtube]
APMEX had 1755 2015 pandas last night. Today? 30! Wow. Is that you sucking those up missing? Gatito?? ))
Ha! I'm actually not interested in Panda coins...never really have been. I have a few raw from pre-2012 but I treat them as I would silver CML's or ASE's. After all, they are minted in the millions every year since 2011. This definitely seems like a bubble and people who are buying 2015's at anything above USD $23.00-26.00 (depending on volume) are paying too much. I'd rather spend that money on blobs and just get more silver for less money if i am going for spot play bullion like Pandas. .
JC8888, only 130.00, what a deal, and a steal. lol. Rumor is they may go to unlimited mintage? True? Who knows. But if so, I'll never buy another Panda. JC can have them all, because truly whatever semblance of semi numi value they had, goes out the window. Watch them have the same panda every year too. :lol: I'll stick with my Perth Mint kooks and lunars. :lol: by the way, you see those prices for the 2 oz horses?
Millions is sort of like unlimited. The precious metals coin stacker doesn't care much what year or what design a coin is...just cares for purity, weight, and if it's priced nearly at spot. When there are millions of bullion Pandas produced every year (for the last several), how difficult could it possibly be to find a few thousand or a few hundred of mixed years to stack for very low premium? The collector may want a couple / few but the smart collector won't pay whale prices. Finally, the investor is the one who speculates and may pay whale prices if she can find a sucker investor who thinks he is smarter than the rest and can make a killing even after paying exorbitant prices himself. In the end, the investors holding the hot potato when the music stops will be the big losers. I think that may have happened with the 2012 PM Lunar Dragon. I think investors may have been flipping a lot of these coins and in the end, many people paid a lot more than they could possibly re-sell them for when the music stopped. And the Dragon mintages are much lower than the 1 oz silver 2015 Panda mintage. .
Good thoughts missing. And I agree. I did buy 13 of then2013's. Because I did like them. I have some of the other years (a few) and a chunk of the 2012's. But you are right. How hard could it be to find a panda with a mintage of 8 million. I think Yennus would argue that there are a billion Chinese people, and when a fraction of those folks get interested in Pandas, they'll soak up all the supply, which may drive prices up. I still think 8 million is a lot. And we know that if the demand is there, the govt will remove the mintage limits, and maybe one day they'll be 100 million of the 2018's minted. At that point the semi-numi element is gone. I just hope the Perth doesn't change their tune. I think they have the best semi numi coins on the market (hopefully they correct the spotting issue)...heck, one can get a kilo goat for less than what they can get a U.S. Eagle (spot+, per oz)
I've heard similar arguments made many times about silver bullion in general...that when people wake up, an ounce of silver in any form will be worth a huge fortune. The problem with arguments like that is that they just don't track with reality very well. Silver has been a noble metal since before the Bronze Age began. So it's not like people haven't had enough time to wake up to discovering silver. Also, silver is treated as far less noble today than it was for thousands of years. It doesn't even function as money and no country backs it's currency with silver and no bank in the world that I am aware of uses silver as an asset. It's used mainly as an industrial metal - it has lost its nobility. Silver is not rare. Compared to truly rare noble metals like Osmium, silver is immensely abundant. There's was more than a billion ounces of refined silver available as supply in 2014 and that number will certainly remain about the same or increase for 2015 if long term supply trends continue as they have for years. https://www.silverinstitute.org/site/supply-demand/ Also, there's no reason that I can think of that Chinese people would focus on Pandas if they came to the realization en masse that silver is worth owning....there'd be plenty of silver blobs and silver jewelry for them to buy instead of paying outrageous premiums for Pandas, I believe. I don't think there will be some grand awakening to silver as a noble metal because there's no reason for people to do this. Most people will remain with the same beliefs they have today. I'm not saying that people shouldn't buy Pandas (if you can get them for a good low price, go for it) - my argument is that people should be very careful not to overpay for Pandas because of stories they might be told about some mass awakening of the public or stuff like that. Pandas are a decent quality mass produced silver bullion coin, not anything else. .
Yepper, that's right missing. I'm sticking with my strategy. low cost bullion (as close to spot, but low mintage, design change, recognized around the world) as my investment choice, and Chinese medals for my collection. However, over the last 7 months, I've pretty much focused on collection, and I need to get back to investing for the future (bullion). hope you are well my friend.
Yes, stick with your plan. When you put on your stacker hat in the belief that silver will some day in the future function as money again, then the lowest cost blobs or bullion coins are a sure fire way to get more silver for your fiat $$$. Over paying for bullion coins usually is not a good strategy. If others want to do that, it's their choice. When you put on your collector hat, then I don't need to remind you that you've already decided what your play is....the kinds of amazing Chinese medals you've already begun purchasing....low mintage, high quality. Stick with your plan with as little aberration as possible. .
Thanks for the vid, b. And certainly hasn't been me. I'm actually with mmissing on this one, for the most part. Don't forget that Apmex likes to play around with their visible inventory numbers from time to time. But, could be legit, given the circumstances.. I've seen similar things happen before. High numbers of customers, including big $$, can suddenly swoop in & scoop stuff up really quickly based on trends & certain pieces of info. I kind of like most of the designs from 2009, onward. They've grown on me. I think they're fairly decent-looking coins. I grab a couple, but certainly nothing crazy. Like, literally a couple. :lol: Also boycotted the 2015's. I understand that "play" -- which may or may not work out (I don't think it will, personally, or at least to the degree that some think it will). Call me weird, but I've got principles. Plus, the 2015 just looks like a weak impression of the '14. I don't really "get" the older ones. I don't think they're all that attractive, and despite much lower mintages. And what I don't also get is the price action. They've been like this for quite some years now -- and only getting "worse" lately. Recent mintages are like, what, in 4th place now, behind ASE's, Maples & Phils? But at least the design changes annually, I'll give 'em that. Still doesn't mean they should be out-performing like they have. Design-wise, I totally dig the 2014. If I had had the funds to do so, I would have picked up a '14 Panda kilo. Instead, I "settled" for the 5-oz a while back (for a good price, too) -- which I think is still awesome. Might be a bit of Au, too, who knows.. Speaking of which, doesn't the Chinese populace much prefer gold over Ag? Good luck to all those re: PandaMania.. The trend can be your friend -- or your enemy.
Indeed Gatito. I passed on the 2015's. And I'll be passing on the 1 oz Pandas. I personally think 8 mil is way too many, even for a billion chinese. lol. And I think the Chinese love both gold and silver...although, I'm sure gold is the preferred. But if they decided to go to unlimited, then for sure they are following the footsteps of eagles, maples, philharmonics, etc...the only exception is the change of pandas...but at unlimited, who cares, is it worth the premius...I ain't buying it. No way. I'll stick with the low premium & low mintage lunar and kook, and low mintage chinese medals. I am glad I bought the 2013's. I do like those quite a bit, especially considering that it 3 pandas.
Millions is far from unlimited - especially in a country where there are more than 1.4billion. It's nice to see that the current price of Pandas reflects this view too (i.e. that demand for Pandas is greater than their supply).
1.4 billion people?????????? So all toddlers including those the age of 2 weeks and also 4 months old are buying silver pandas....really????????? I would say a lot closer to a couple hundred thousand people buying pandas in China. Most Chinese, from what I have read, are very poor and only buy what's necessary for living....which definitely won't include panda coins. So 9 million pandas would probably go a long way (a whole lot of surplus)....unless pump & dump speculators are buying a lot of them in order to artificially drive up the price and then flip at some point. 1.4 billion Chinese buying pandas...that's a good one! :lol: .
China gets two new USD billionaires every week plus another 800-900 millionaires (plus an unknown number of existing millionaires who make another million). You'd only really need a few hundred rich Chinese to get enough buying power to make up for every child in the country who can't buy a Panda. China will produce enough new rich people to do that before dinner tomorrow.
I hope you are right AD and Yennus, but I'm in missing's camp. I just don't see how 8, 9, 10 million, etc...becomes a semi-numi play. . I'm not buying it (literally). :lol: Even with the large population, I still think the mint to demand makes pandas not much better than maples, Eagles, Philharmonics, etc...with one big difference, the image changes. I don't think it's enough to keep it from getting pulled down to just another bullion coin (when montages are pushing the numbers of Ealges and Maples, which I suspect they will - 1.4 billions, thems are a lot folks!!). I'll stick with my limited mintage Perth Mint Lunars and Kooks!!
