What's up with medal mintages?

Are they overstating these things??


I find it hard to believe that something actually has a mintage of 10,000 physical medals, for example -- when I can't even find the thing!

And this would be for *recently*-issued medals, like within the past 1 to 3 years. Out of all the sellers out there, nobody ever has it, and nobody can ever find it.

Common sense would dictate that if they actually existed in these numbers, surely somebody at some point would be able to track one down, especially if they knew ahead of time that a buyer would be willing to pay up for it. I mean, who doesn't want to make a few extra easy $$??

Where is the supply?


I noticed something else: When the electronic market for this stuff came online, that's when I started noticing the mintages oftentimes jumping 10-fold.

For something that would probably usually have a mintage of "only" 3,000... Suddenly now has a mintage of *30,000*!

Do those extra 27,000 medals actually exist in a physical form? Something tells me "no."



Perhaps somebody with some concrete knowledge can tell me what's going on here with this stuff these days.

Because I'm not believing many of these mintages. Heck, it was bad enough a couple years ago when they were simply stating the max mintage -- when in reality, they probably weren't actually minting the full run of a couple thousand or whatever. But these days, it just seems like it became even way more silly.


And believe me, I'm not taking a dig at this stuff. I still love it. But I'm genuinely curious, because what's printed on the COA in terms of mintages, isn't being reflected in physical everyday reality.

 

Hi you had missing in air for Long.

It is true 30,000, 60,000 or even 100,000 mintage. It had physicall minted for online platform.

You did experience getting the hand carved horses medal silver and brass which with sloppy quality. That the medal purely make for online platform.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/CHINA-2015-80...%3A4622b2ff1590a2abc5a835daffee3779%7Ciid%3A8

This is another online platform item. Take a look of the coa no.

This seller selling it very expensive. In fact it cost less than 90 usd. Other eBay's sellers sell it around 100. 80 g .999 silver which suppose price at 160 to 250 minimum. However, the high mintage plus sloppy quality has pulled the price down significantly.

It is not everyone and even some able to buy the online platform item by few pieces or even 100 or 500 pieces to offer to physical market.

Sometimes you are able to see some online platform item in physical market are due to

1. The biggest buyers withdraw all his/her item from platform after losing money and cash out in physical market to recoup some cash rather keep loading money on online platform.

2. The listed or register items owner request to mint more item which 90 % for online platform listing and balance for physical market. This the reason you see more high mintage online item sell in eBay even it is newly listed on online platform.

3. Some online items are stolen from the store and sell cheap in market.

There are more reasons. Many forums veteran do not publish and know about it at all. Some even blur and not tell the true even they aware about it. Therefore, must be more informative and beware while buying.

Buy what you like at affordable price. Low price does not means it will be good. Low mintage Low price be does not means it will appreciate sharply. Many factors lead to appreciating of value.

Filter all information of online media like forum, utube and so on. Seek second opinions rather than trusting of one sources of information. Go to wrong forums by newbies will fall into trap easily.

Take note I am a seller so my information might be bias too. Howver , I am collectors in many years which I did pay some expensive tuition fee too as when I am newbie regardless is western or china coins and medals.



You need to register an account with the platform and deposit in at least 1 Mio rmb or even more to buy and sell. No physical medal likely to withdraw.

 

Thanks for the reply, Andrew.

I've still been here, but mostly lurking. Too lazy to log in.



Simple question to clarify...


So when the COA says 30,000 mintage, for example, does that mean there are actually 30,000 physical medals out there?

Maybe most of them locked up in the exchange's vault or something?

 

I'm not a expert like Andy, but I do know the planned mintage may be 30,000, but the actual is a lot less. Thems are the facts. For example, the Lohan 1 has a planned mintage of 999 for the silver version. You think there are 999 out there? No chance in H E double L. No way! Maybe 300 is what I've been told. I'm sure that concept is true with these astronomical mintages of 30, 40 and 100 pieces.

 

What piece are you trying to hunt down. You've piqued my curiosity. PM me. Lol.

 

Maybe it's just me, but while I did appreciate some of the info Andy shared, I did not see or comprehend a direct answer to Gatito's question about the actual mintage....and it's a very good question.

Andy, if you could please say whether or not the proposed mintage numbers are the same as the actual mintage numbers in most cases? I know that at times some mints have produced COA's equaling the proposed mintage number yet the actual number of coins / medals minted doesn't match the COA / proposed mintage number. So, one could literally have a COA numbered 5,000 come with a coin of which no more than 2,500 were actually minted.

A COA number is often not a good determining factor on how many coins / medals were actually minted.

And if this is true for many Chinese medals, then is there a chart(s) which indicate actual mintage numbers of medals rather than proposed mintage numbers? If none exists, I think compiling such a list/chart/database would be a great service to the Chinese medal collecting market. There could even be money made for someone to compile such a database.....that person could charge a fee for access to that information. Now of course, anyone who compiles such a database would best be someone who can communicate fluently with the various mints in China because only they could know the actual mintages since they are the mints that produce these medals.

Andy....this could be a great opportunity for you to shine and make a little money providing such a service! I cast a vote for Andy to compile the Chinese & Oriental Modern Medal Actual miNtage Database (a.k.a. "COMMAND").




.

 

majority of item mints for online platform are fully minted. Not to suspect the mintage 30k, 60k, 100k or even higher.

Missing, I has informed in the forum no china mint formally announce the actual mint of medal and coins. Only estimation and guessing job like peter Anthony book. The information is not fully complete from Gold panda from 1982 till 2016. This book is for panda only not even other china coins.

As medal always the sponsor has the information which many sponsors do not disclose it publicly except few of them. However, sponsor has conflict of interest in disclosures and might hide some information or even make use of disclose fake information. Thus , the trueness of the disclosure is in question and vary depend on the honesty of the sponsor. I always inform collectors trust the planned mintage in coa not other information if you are not sure of it.

Hope those information helpful.

 

Lohan is not online item which quoted by Gadito

It is not fully minted but not less less than 300 as your good Friend told you.

Those 30k, 60 k and 100 k medal mint for online platform are fully minted most of time.

 

Let me list down few online platform item which likely to fully mint tomorrow.

Majority of them look in store

 

I always liked that Lohan medal. Very nice work IMHO.

 

The sponsor will not likely to do the second of the series since he not making any money out of it.

 

Maybe another sponsor could take over the series.. I know just the two guys for the job!
\ \

 

You can be the sponsor with my help. I am not doing it for sure.

 

Is this Bob and Andy? You got a good grading guys! Sure I at best would be graded Details lol

 

I like it too mt. But apparently the Chinese don't like the Buddha assissin. I guess it wasn't popular there or here. I believe Thincat said something like 300 were sold, out of the 999, which compared to other low mintage medals, I think that is pretty good. And I think that number would increase if they came out with the 2nd. Maybe Gatito with deep pockets can motivate someone at the chinese mints to do number 2, which I think would be a hit (pardon the pun), if done correctly.

 

I heard that Gatito's pockets are so deep that he can just purchase the mint outright!

If he does, he'd have all future medal designs contain nekid babies.



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Let gadito starts the silver world heritage 4 and Lohan 2 before the buying decision.

 

Lol. Right on Andy. Gaaaaaaatito. Yeah man, float the dollars for Lohan 2 and WH4 silver, and we are right behind you with open arms....hehehe

 

Heck, before funding WH4 silver, fund the full silver mintages to WH 1-3.




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Believe me, I'd be sponsoring a ton of awesome high-relief Chinese medals, in a heartbeat.


But unfortunately, I lost all my play-money on the electronic platform on all these fictitious "paper" medals.