I believe, but I may be wrong, that modern coins in general, even "high relief" coins are designed so that the rim is the highest point on the coin. Medals, by comparison, do not have to share this feature and in fact many Chinese medals that I can think of at the moment have much higher points in the actual design than the rim. Some Chinese medals don't even bother with a rim, which in my view is generally a much better way to go because that means without a rim there's more room for the design. The uber high relief, rimless, and very low mintage are all reasons I have been drawn to the Chinese medals in terms of satiating my desire for aesthetically appealing metal. This Provident pirate round is half decent in my view though it's hardly high relief when you compare to the Chinese high relief medals. Above images are the Snake Dance silver medal Snake Dance copper medal 2014 Great Wall silver medal from World Heritage series 2011 Xi-Shi Holding a Pearl silver medal 2013 Great Wall from Shanghai to Jiayu Pass medal set .
Those snake dance medals are crazy nice! Well all of them for that matter. Who sells the Snake dance medals?
When I started thinking more "seriously" to buy one, seller informed me that all are gone. Btw it's a rhyme. I heard that only 9 were made. :/ Mmissinglink posted probably one of the nicest collection of medals you can put up. Ah, my eyes!
I don't want to take too much space in this thread to discuss Chinese medals but Chinese medals was brought up by another member. I'll make my comment as brief as possible. Except for only a couple of aesthetically challenged people I've come across in the past couple or so years, the sentiment you expressed is more or less universal. The Snake Dance medal is an aesthetically striking design. The brass and copper set is very low mintage and the silver is rare....last time I checked with the mint that produces them, there were 9 silver Snake Dance medals produced. The max mintage is 99 but the actual mintage clearly is much lower....and maybe that's because the price of these very large (1.3 kilos) silver medals is close to USD $3,000 on eBay and only slightly less on TaoBao.com (a massive marketplace which includes dealers offering quite a variety of genuine / authentic medals - though I have never purchased directly from TaoBao....I always go through a Chinese dealer I am familiar with and whom I know I can trust because I have purchased from them already). I have 1 brass and 1 copper but I do not have plans to sell these. As Stark mentioned, on scarce occasion, you can find one or two of the Snake Dance medals (I've seen a brass listed last year...it's gone and most recently available was the silver but it is unavailable / sold) on eBay but they may not be available for much time once they are listed. Maybe SilverStacker forum member AndrewLee can hunt one down for you....his connections are pretty extensive. Good luck...they are remarkable medals in the hand. .
Yeah, the first price was only the introductory price. It sucks that I lost track of time and placed my order and the day they were gonna ship (4/20) and that was the day they jumped up the price and it showed delayed. I hope I don't have to wait too long to get it..
Oh and don't worry mmissinglink, It is a bit off topic but those are some great looking medals. That Silver one looks PHENOMENAL!! So stunning. Thanks for sharing the pics and info. But to me, they obviously aren't coins. Just a hunk of metal with a neat design. No year, markings, country. I think it's a different market of collectors. As amazing as it is, I don't think I could get into medals haha.
I really want atleast one of these, they look super nice. If they come out like the prospector rounds or better I think they will look super cool. And the 2oz is a plus!
Nice, thanks for posting. Not a super amount of detail on the skull but that ship looks pretty decent. Might have to get some if Goldstackers get any in.
Dang, what a coin! It looks super nice but I have to agree with you, the 'high relief' coin does seem to be lacking in.... well, height! Haha but nonetheless I really like the design and it is struck well and doesn't seem to have major flaws so this passes!
Nice! I am convinced, ordered a tube. Why bother paying $200 to $300 for 1 high relief 1 oz or 2 oz coin when you can get these for $40 to $50 US each, other then the unknown mintage these are and will be very desirable imo.
