LUNAR PANDA #2 MONKEY (Series)

Hello everyone. We (Andy/me) want to give you an update about the LUNAR PANDA SERIES: MONKEY #2. A lot of GREAT progress has been made. We should be able share some exciting pictures and information soon enough. It promises to be a great edition to the Lunar Goat Panda #1.

 

Be transparent, Bob and me are part of the sponsor of this LUNAR PANDA SERIES start from Monkey.

The golden snub-nosed monkey an endanger animal is selected for this LUNAR PANDA SERIES : Monkey.

Golden snub-nosed monkey is an Old World monkey in the Colobinae subfamily. It is endemic to a small area in temperate, mountainous forests of central and Southwest China at elevations of 1,500-3,400 m above sea level. The Chinese name is Sichuan golden hair monkey (). Snow occurs frequently within its range and it can withstand colder average temperatures than any other non-human primates.

There are only 4 species of Golden Monkey that exist in the world, including Golden Golden Monkey, Yunnan Golden Monkey, Guizhou Golden Monkey and Tonkin Golden Monkey. The first three species inhabit China so we can say Golden monkey is peculiar to China and under the State's first-class protection. Besides China, there are some specimens of golden monkeys in the museums of few countries such as UK and France in the world. Golden Monkey, which is as precious as the Giant Panda in China, is also China's "national treasure". The Golden Monkey, having bight-colored fur, special appearance, graceful movement and gentle nature, is deeply loved by people.

The Golden Monkey's body length is about 70 cm (2.3 ft) and the length of its tail is the same as that of its body or even longer. This monkey has flat nose with nostrils facing forward, full lips and no cheek pouch. The beautiful Golden monkey has cyan and polish long fur on its back and blackish-grey fur on shoulders, upper arms, back, crown and tail. The side of the crown, nape, abdomen, inner arms and thighs are covered with soft brown fur. The Golden monkey is named after the stump nose with forward-facing nostrils, and it is also called 'non nose bridged' because of its seriously degenerated nose.

The golden snub-nosed monkey is endangered due to habitat loss. This primate is found in a number of protected areas, including Baihe Nature Reserve, Foping National Nature Reserve, Shennongjia National Geopark and Wanglang National Nature Reserve.

The San Francisco Zoo kept this species during 1985, and the San Diego zoo kept the species before the 1980s. Outside China only Japan and South Korea keep the golden-snub nosed monkeys.


Here the photo of this endanger animal.

 

Great info guys! I had no idea about this monkey specimen and the work done to save them. I think bringing awareness about the important preservation of endangered animals would give this series an extra dimension. At least you have started out with 2 of them In a way I would hope you wouldn't find a endangered animal for each year, but it wouldn't surprise me. Keep up the good work and i sure look forward to see the #2.

 

Here are some of the Lunar monkey coin by China mints in previous years for the monkey.

The first 2 are gold. third is platinum and the last one is silver.

You notice that the monkey has big hand and leg which are covered by fur that different from other monkey available at zoo. This make the Golden fur monkey so special. Besides that their mouth always face down instead of laughing type.

I will post the design of the monkey panda in another few hours soon.

 

Here the panda design

 

here the monkey

 

Here is the cleaner looking monkey picture along side of the panda picture. This is Lunar Panda #2. Next up? The mold...in the upcoming days. Hope you like it as much as we do. It will of course have 2 oz, 999 AG on the medal.

 

Is this a high-relief medal?

 

Are you refer to the panda monkey or the coins I post?

 

Kind of weird design to have a monster giant panda sitting on the Great Wall. LOL

 

lol he will break the great wall

 

I am talking about the 2016 Panda Lunar Monkey medal. I am just trying to ascertain the crafting of the medal, whether there are high reliefs in its structure or if it is just a regular flattish (non-high relief) medal.

 

It is high relief. The plaster model will post this week or next. Hopefully the medal will complete soon. The first pattern medal high relief is not up to our quality standard so we demand mints to refine it.

 

Okay. I could not determine from the drawings you posted if they were high relief or not. The molds will hopefully give a better indication of the structure.

Was the artist trying to convey any message with the dysmorphic large Panda in relation to the surroundings? At times such designs are made to convey a "larger than life" attribute to the subject. Reminds me of the size of the 2013 Expo Panda in relation to the size of the medal itself. Do you know if the Panda side was designed by the same artist as the 2013 Expo Panda?

I guess you will give us more information on the designers, their thought process and the message they wish to convey through their design. I look forward to seeing the actual medals.

 

Will post the plaster mould tonight Singapore time.

Yes, it is good to understand the designers thought, messages to convey and so on because medal is more art oriented. will provide more information next week. Busy with work schedule

It is Mints policy not release the designer name so I would not be able to release. I do not think it is the same designer of 2013 expo panda for the monkey panda.

 

here the plaster model. Silver 2 oz .999 with planned mintage 499





The panda plaster model will not publish so not ask

 

Whoa, pretty cool.. Probably my favorite 2016 Monkey so far!


Obviously the true test is the final product, but looking good at this stage..

 

A unique medal in a number of ways chief of which include (1) Combines the much loved Panda with a lunar animal, (2) Two endangered animal species represented on the medal, (3) Similar to the Panda Lunar Goat medal, a family of monkeys shown. I am still looking at the artwork and design elements although, yes, final impressions can only be made with the actual medal.

My interest in contemporary coins and medals is mainly from the fact that we are able to follow the story closely from almost start to launch and subsequent market progress. I bought the 2015 medal and am buying this 2016 medal. Hopefully this Panda Lunar Animal medal series will continue to be unique and become a collector item.

 

I agrees the ways to appreciate a collection. I view medal and coin are type of art collection rather than precious metal. Sellers and buyer are not selling and paying for the metal value. They buy the art perspective, theme of the coins (medal), the ideas and message of the art pieces and all others reasons. This is a weak areas of many mints which do not do a good jobs to publish and market those aspects in selling their products. I view classical garden series and world heritage do a good jobs. They provide the small booklet to explain the theme. However both do not convey the message of the design to public.

This is our part time matter so we are unable to fully focus on this medal things. In additional, our capital is limited to do a lot of formal and grand activities to market this medal.

We have an upcoming exciting projects on hand in next 1 -3 months. We did invited a limited no. of collectors in participating and providing us value opinions on the new projects. Those do make the project more fun loving.

Someone might say this is 2 oz silver why cost so much higher than a 2 oz silver round. This is a junk in their eyes since they do not see the value and appreciate it. It can be a junk in their eyes and it also can be a treasure in another person eye who like it and value it. This is hard to justify since everyone is unique and free to choose.

By the way I have made a promotion of Panda goat silver proof NGC PF69 at low USD3XX before the shipping of the panda monkey. This is the lowest price as compare in ebay (current price). Hope a new collector of this series will pick it up and enjoy the series of this lunar panda. I did helping a customer to sell it and he get it a release price. He did earning a decent margin if sold.

I have 10 pieces PF70 panda goat in NGC and PCGS and few omp which I bought back from customers. I will sell it in future BUT not now. Bob have less than 10 pcs NGC PF70 too.

Besides that, I have few pieces of gold panda goat too. The physical medal likely to complete within this year NO PHOTO will disclose. It is only private sell as at now.

On top of it, I have more than 15 pieces silver antiques panda goat and Bob have around 10-13 pcs. This is 30% of total mintage. We sold around 20 pieces to collectors. The balances are sold by other dealers. We believes the majority available stock is on both of our hand now not other dealers and collectors.

We are very opening and transparent for this series. Our stock level are disclosing here.

Panda goat silver proof and silver antiques are fully mints. Gold panda goat are not fully mints of planned mintage of 19. However, as disclose earlier it mints around 12 pcs which more than half sold and at mints collection.

We are not able to disclose all stock level for all stuff that we are selling because we only sponsor monkey panda and NOT all products at the webpage.

 

Hello Gatito, thanks for the positive feedback. Greatly appreciate it. I know we looked at a lot of designs, and went back and forth on what would be the best for this issue. Obviously there were pros and cons on most of what we shared, but we settled on this monkey design for all the reasons mentioned above. When we saw the plaster mold we were excited. However, as we all know, what matters most is what it looks like on the metal, and we are counting on it looking as good if not better than the Panda Goat.
And I agree with KOT about the uniqueness of this series. It has two of the favorite animals on the same coin. The Panda and the Lunar. The goat has done really well, and we believe this series will continue to get more and more popular with each subsequent issue. I can't wait to see the Tiger and Dragon. :lol: I believe Peter Anthony is adding it to his next book (what I've heard).