Noob understanding to date: Bars - Good for building the stack and playing silver dominos. Gets the most silver per $. Coins - Pretty to look at, legal tender and higher cost to hold due to manuf. costs to produce and mint etc. 1oz are nice to play poker with. Lunar vs Yearly(Is there a name for these?) - Lunar would have a slightly higher premium due to 'limited' run of each year compared to the yearly standards (kooks, koalas, ASE, Maples etc) Would there be any differences in premiums for the same coin, made in a different year?? Eg. Would a 2011 ASE command a different price to 2009 ASE?? 2010 Tiger vs 1998 Tiger??
It all comes down to mintage really for coins, and how much people like the designs. You are not going to see much difference accross american silver eagles as the design doesnt change and the mintage numbers are so high. http://silvereagleguide.com/mintages/ The 96 is regarded as the key date, but it still had a mintage of 3.6M so not exactly scarse, and you should only see premiums on high grade slabbed coins. The proofs are in more limited numbers. The lunars have the advantage of being a finite series so you can get complete sets, whilst kooks etc change design but continue each year and they have higher mintages. Obviousely your premiums are higher in Australia for foreign coins due to import costs.
coins are also handy if liquidity is of a concern. I try keep enough coins so as to not be forced to liquidate main bar stack
