Not being up on lunars I would appreciate some help on mintages. Am I right in my presumption that although mintages are unlimited bar the 1 oz coin, will the PM stop once 2012 is finished? I am considering picking up a 5 oz dragon and just wondered if unlimited meant they can keep churning them out for as long as they want or only until the end of year? Thanks
The 1oz dragon was/is limited to 300,000 coins. The rest of the bullion sizes are unlimited mintage only until the next in the series is released. So, once the snakes are out, no more dragons will be produced - I think that is how they work it.
The Perth Mint: http://www.perthmintbullion.com/bullion-brochure/silver-bullion-brochure-2012.pdf No mintage limit applies to 1 kilo, 10oz, 5oz, 2oz and 1/2oz coins. Except for the 1 kilo release, production of these coins will close at the end of 2012 and The Perth Mint will declare each coin's official mintage. Production of 1 kilo coins will cease at the end of the series. A maximum of 500 10 kilo coins will be produced on a mint-to-order basis. However, production will close at the end of 2012, when the coin's actual mintage will be declared. The Perth Mint will produce up to 300,000 1oz coins. Production will cease when the mintage is fully sold or at the end of the series, whichever comes first.
Good choice with the 5 oz in terms of rarity factor. According to this blog post as of late June the Dragon mintage 1/2 oz 270580 1 oz 300000 2 oz 100790 5 oz 26000 10 oz 41796 1 kg 46691 10 kg 200+ http://www.perthmintbullion.com/au/...rend_Emerges_-_What_s_Your_View.aspx#comments My understanding is that production has ceased for the 10 kg and closed to new orders and the current mintage is in the 200s.
While it is in comparison to the others in the series, I can't say I'm suprised. I was thinking that if you took the largest mintage of any of the first 4 and doubled it, that'd be about where the dragon mintages came in. I'd venture a guess that the snake will have about an equal amount of 1/2 and 2oz as the rabbit and 5 and 10oz about equal to the tiger. If silver stays as hot as it is now, that would probably continue to the end of the series, so those early series odd size coins are going to bring ridiculous cash. I'll repeat that this would be my guess if silver continues to get "new blood" or interest that it has for the last year or 2.
I was mentioning more about people becoming interested in it, as opposed to the price heating up. So, yes?
Oh I see it is interest in Lunars that is heating up and not silver. IMHO another leg down in silver spot will put interest of the boil a bit and another leg up will have them selling as fast as dragons
You're correct. I like to call that "flavor of the month investing". The price rises, people that know just enough to be dangerous to themselves dive in with both feet. The price falls and those same people sell in a paniced frenzy "before it goes to zero". While it's not really funny, it's as inevitable as the sun rising and falling daily.
