Congrats to all SS's, Happy Birthday, special mention of course to the founding father GP. A pelican would go well on the reverse side!
Not a bad idea, some of the NORFED rounds were hallmarked and numbered by hand by Bernard himself, doing something like this could put a numi twist onto these rounds making them sort after in years to come. I think marking them by hand would be quite inexpensive as well, just time consuming.
Tricky one! There is a niche for a plain bullion round, not all the buffaloes are dated, but it is just a niche. More people seem to want to collect them at the same time. If you make enough and the difference is only a couple of cents per round then it is worth changing the design, at least on one side. However it would be nice to have some cheap options for buying silver, particularly if they were a lot cheaper. With some of the generic rounds you think, "for an extra buck or so I could get an ASE or a Maple, a bit more and I could get a kook." I figure that if you wanted cheap silver that never changed then bars are the way to go. If you are going to the effort and expense to mint a round you might as well go to town! It rewards the people who get in early, they might appreciate in value, a new design each year may re-stimulate interest. Whatever you do I will be getting some anyway, but if we can avoid any dragons that would be good!
Updated concepts were submitted today - expecting artwork back next week. Design has been finalised - the actual design will be kept under wraps for a little while just yet. These will be premium rounds - not your average generic round. The first run will be for 1000oz, but subsequent runs will probably be done with the same die set, there's considerable overhead in getting a die manufactured. While we're proud to be bringing a wholly-Australian sourced round to market, local costs are what they are, so please don't be holding out for $2/oz premiums over spot - it's just not feasible at this time. The quality of the strikes though will hopefully speak for themselves. These rounds have a distinctive Australian influence from the George V penny (which was just begging to be used as inspiration for a bullion round), but the reverse is guaranteed to have a world-first unique design that will have global appeal to stackers - we're expecting it to be imitated! (ok, maybe that's a little too much hype). There might be a new low premium bar in the works too... been busy little beavers.
This one has a certain appeal. But the round one does look handsome. Source: http://www.coinnews.net/2012/01/16/heritage-january-nyinc-world-coins-auction-realizes-10-7m/ I'm in for a couple
Congrats GP and family - I'm sure its been extremely satisfying seeing your sight grow in popularity. Keep up the good work. I'll buzz 2 coins.
Possibly, as an optional extra to those PAMP guys & girls who love their COA, you could offer COA with these new SS rounds. And then people can squabble on the secondary market once the COA has gone missing :lol: Looking forward to seeing the first real photograph.
Hoping to make an availability/ordering announcement this week. Looks like there will be two versions in the first run of 1000, with different planchet finishes being trialled. So 500 of each type coming at first. Basically some experimental minting to determine the "standard" production format.
