Hi all, We all know that silver coins, 1c and 2c coins were deprecated because the melted metal value in the coins started to surpass the legal tender value. I wondered, with the recent surge in Nickel and the continuing strength of copper, how are our large and awesome CuNi coinage are going. They have'nt changed since 1966/7. Here is what I found when I calculated the metal values of each of the Australian coins from 1c to $2: As you can see, the 1c and 2c coin were really big problems and are now worth over 3 times in melt value over the legal tender face value. However, our 5, 10 and 20c coins are in trouble! It may even be as soon as next year that the melt value will exceed the face value! The bigger value coins appear to be reasonably safe, but if Australia is going to follow NZ and issue smaller CuNi coins then the 50c piece will probably shrink as well. Another possibility is to follow countries like europe and the UK where the core of the coin is steel and only the surface is CuNi or bronze. There would still be an impact on coin counting and vending machines due to weight changes but it would be easier to handle for shops and to roll for security companies. So, whatever happens, Australia might be forced to address the issue in 2022 or 2023. Maybe it is time to go down to the bank and buy up the small silver coin rolls! Once the scrap metal people catch on the circulated volumes of those coins will drop and once replacement cons are issued the older coins will be destroyed by the mint. Just my thoughts.
I looked into it a few years back. Separating the two metals is really expensive and difficult. There are lots of different CuNi alloys used for all sorts of things but the alloy in the coins is pretty much just used in coins. So it would be too expensive to refine the coins and the alloy wouldn't be easily used by other manufacturing processes. So maybe big companies could stockpile them but probably not worth the average stacker bothering with them unless you have a lot of space. At least the coins store better than copper. Silver coins are a bit different as you only need a bit of nitric acid and some copper to refine the silver out of the coins. even then, you lose the copper unless you want to further refine it with Iron, but none of the youtubers seem to bother recovering the copper so it is hard to come by any tutorials.
The smaller denominations kiwi coins are steel core with copper (10c) or nickel plating (20c & 50c), plus they ditched the 5c piece as well when they changed over. Their $1 and $2 coins stayed the same as AlBr coins. You might be better off noodling for rare, low mintage or error coins from regular circulation if you're looking to gain value over face value. There's so many to look for, and they range in value to just a touch over face to many multiples over face value. This is not an exhaustive list, but here's a starting point from what I can remember off the top of my head: 2000 10c/$1 mule 1972 5c coin (low mintage) 2011 10c coin (low mintage 1.7mil, people flogging them on eBay for $6 each) 2016 change over $1 2010 offset 50c 2000 incuse flag 50c 2001 federation $1 (whole range of rotational offset errors) 2003 volunteers $1 commemorative (low mintage) 2013 purple coronation $2 (hard to find in circulation now, but can sell up to $35 in coin collecting circles) 1966 wavy 20c the RAM has kind of overdone it with the coloured $2 coins, but from time to time you can find them and flog them on eBay for over face value. then of course if you're really lucky, you might even find predecimal silver in the mix amongst your 5, 10 or 20 cent coins as they are the same size and shape as the 6d, 1s and 2s predec
Is it worthwhile getting circulated Coronations graded by PCGS, They’re in good nick, I’m not able to grade though
Forget about those crappy coins lads, empty out your loose change and look for 1988/89 $2 coins with the 'HH' initials for the designer Horst Hahne, even in the average circulated condition they are bringing in $3000 on eBay at the present time. Some years ago when the RAM was selling off their unique master coins I purchased four of the five pure gold $2 coins on offer, and yet if I was to try and sell these ones-of-kind coins today I doubt I would get $1500 for each of them. Yet this crap can sell for $3k! Just goes to show how fucked up the world is at present. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1988-ra...=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
Yeh a fool and his money are soon parted or something like that. Having said that though I have a very low opinion of those rip-off sellers flogging the “rare” HH $2 coins
I guess depends what grade you think they’ll get. From what I could find for sold eBay listings, the lowest grade sold recently was MS63, and they range in sold prices of $70ish and up in grades MS63-MS66
Yes, I have a low opinion of those 'sell sharks' as well but, I have an even lower opinion of the dumb asses who pay those sorts of extravagant prices, it is not as if someone is twisting their arm and forcing them to buy things at these ridiculous prices.
This will add to the trade on SS in time with tubes of 5/10/20's getting bought and sold like round 50's.
Prices have pumped even more since this thread was posted. Only another 5% rise and we might see them begin to stop circulating. A 5c coin is worth 4.946c of metal, 10c is worth 9.893c of metal, and 20c is worth 18.978c of metal.
Just had a look at the historical charts for copper and nickel....first time for everything. Both spiked in 2007-8 & 2010-11 with copper to similar levels and nickel more than double today's price....then they both corrected (crashed). Are the industrial fundamentals ie use different to 2010-11 ish or is it purely a supply issue (mine, refinery or transport) due to Covid? I dare say the RBA will sit back and watch the commodity cycle play out before deciding on the future of the the 5/10/20c pieces. That said, the Govt wants to get rid of cash, so why not BS to the public re the escalating costs to make them and use that as the excuse to pull hard currency from the economy. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/nickel
I thought currently the commodity futures are soaring because of the energy crunch - everyone is trying to secure materials before smelters and refiners close down due to energy shortages? Not sure if I'm completely in the woods, lol. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wir...ts-global-recovery-winter-approaches-80658184
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...d-key-role-in-draining-lme-copper-inventories Trafigura Played Key Role in Draining LME Copper Inventories By Jack Farchy and Mark Burton 20 October 2021, 2:07 am AEDT Updated on 20 October 2021, 8:40 am AEDT Trafigura Group withdrew a significant proportion of copper that’s been pulled from London Metal Exchange warehouses, contributing to wild swings in prices, according to people familiar with the matter. The drawdown has made the trading house the talk of the copper market, helping to drive available stocks to the lowest since 1974 and pushing a key spread to the highest on record. It’s also helped to spur outright copper prices higher, with benchmark futures up about 13% since the start of the month and approaching record highs set in May. It’s not unusual for physical traders to withdraw metal from the exchange to ship to their customers, and Trafigura isn’t the only trading house to have taken metal off the exchange in recent months, the people said. And the move comes against a backdrop of very low inventories globally. Still, total requests to withdraw more than 150,000 tons of copper from LME warehouses in the past two months have all but drained the available stocks on the exchange, and Trafigura represents a significant proportion of those, the people said. A spokeswoman for Trafigura declined to comment. The LME responded Tuesday to the dramatic moves in copper by adjusting rules governing the market, including by imposing limits on the shortest-term spreads. The changes were made “to maintain continued market orderliness and avoid the development of an undesirable situation,” and are intended to be temporary, it said. The LME also launched an inquiry into recent trading in copper. Late on Tuesday, it emailed members asking for details about client activity in copper warrants going back to early August, according to people familiar with the matter. Read: LME Steps In to Tackle Copper Market Chaos With Rare Rule Change The exchange took the steps after the spread between copper for immediate delivery and copper for delivery in 3 months blew out this week to more than $1,000 a ton, the highest in records going back to the 1980s, according to the LME. The move in LME stocks shifted the market sentiment over the course of last week, as traders gathered in London for LME Week, said Citigroup Inc. analyst Max Layton. “The bullish physical sentiment for copper intensified through the week amid the sharp decline in LME on-warrant stock levels,” he said, referring to metal that’s not already earmarked for withdrawal. “Prior to this, the physical backdrop to copper had seemed much more benign then the likes of zinc.” During the pandemic, Trafigura has emerged as one of the most high-profile bulls in the global copper market, with head trader Kostas Bintas predicting that prices will hit $15,000 in the coming years as the industry witnesses a new supercycle underpinned by booming demand in electric vehicles and renewable energy. Even with macroeconomic headwinds mounting during a global energy crunch, Bintas said earlier this month that rapidly dwindling stockpiles were undergirding the outlook for prices. So far, the surge in power markets has had a disproportionate impact on supply, while firm demand has added to the strain on global inventories, he said. Trafigura traded 4.4 million tons of copper last year, one million tons more than its largest rival, Glencore Plc. After years of intense competition, it overtook Glencore as the top trader in 2019, and has since extended its lead as the latter’s volumes have shrunk. (Updates with LME inquiry in seventh paragraph)
A timely article in the SMH tonight which touches on the issue of commodity price v face value of AUD 5/10/20 coins. Not sure the journo fully understands the dynamics of why people stack coins and bullion. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...5-coins-and-gold-bullion-20211022-p592b3.html Why Australians are hoarding 5¢ coins and gold bullion By Jennifer Duke October 22, 2021 — 5.40pm Households were not only hoarding canned goods and toilet paper during the coronavirus pandemic, they were also stockpiling rolls of coins. Demand was so high for 20¢, 10¢ and even 5¢ pieces when COVID-19 sent the nation into lockdown that the Royal Australian Mint was forced to double shifts to produce enough change to keep up over the past financial year. Five-cent pieces were among the coins being stockpiled during the pandemic.Credit:Adam Hollingworth The rush for change was unexpected as restaurants, cafes and retail outlets went cashless during COVID-19 and lockdowns meant many were switching to online shopping. Royal Australian Mint chief executive Leigh Gordon said he believed some of the coins were being stockpiled by individual households. “In times of crisis, people sometimes lose trust in some of the institutions – governments and banks – becoming more dependent on using cash,” he said. It costs more to produce a 5¢ piece than it is actually worth due to the cost of the nickel, copper and labour required. Former Mint chief executive Ross MacDiarmid previously said he expected the use of lower-denomination coins would continue to decline until they would no longer be required. (click above link for full article).
These coin exchange machines have a daily withdrawal limit of $4000, which is 226kg of coins if you went with 5c/10c/20c. Obviously nobody withdraws this much so the limit doesn't matter to anyone currently. But sooner or later metal prices will rise and we'll probably see on the news that some cashed up idiots walked down the main strip of a city and withdrew a quarter tonne of metal from every bank, Mississippi-bubble style.
I managed to score around 50 of these when the Canberra Mint was doing an offer of a face value swap. Pay $10 and get a mint bag of five $2 coronation coins. From memory they minted 0.5 million in total and most went into circulation. They only offered 1 bag per person, but they let us line up twice and I got my family to come down and get some for us, too. Last time I checked they were a couple hundred $$ per coin un-graded. I used to noodle through coins as a hobby for about a year at one stage. I found 3 mules in one day and never found any since. I managed to get a couple of wavey 20 cents, incused 50c, a heap of rotation errors, a whole array of other error coins and special coins like the $1 coloured poppies etc. As a hobby, it really paid off! I reckon the collection I ended up with would be worth $20-30K+. All from face value acquisition. The coin market, like any collector market, goes through waves. I started collecting at the perfect time just before a large volume of newbies entered the scene. I lost interest after I found most things and they began to beat the coloured $2 horse to death. As you would be aware - value is subjective - and the free market will decide what something is worth throughout the ages. Lot's of fun while it lasted though.
Honestly, I think old mate was mistaken. All 88 and 89 $2 coins have HH on it. Check this out: https://www.australian-coins.com/coin-news/rare-counterstamped-1988-2-dollar-coin-issue/ Nice little trick. Doesn't stop people listing them for whatever they want. There will always be people willing to pay a fools price on beliefs alone.
Mintage of 160 million and 31 million respectively. They are worth no more than face value, but like STKR has pointed out, Ebay is littered with these "rare" coins with prices up in the tens of thousands sometimes lol
