I had a look through the mintage figures of Season 1 Lunars. Not a 1 single 1oz coin came close to selling out the mintage. Didn't even reach half I believe. It then ticks over to series 2 and every single 1oz release is a 300 000 mintage sell out. What happened?
Was there a marketing push at the start of series 2 though? The Ox in 2009 only sold 52 267, the tiger in 2010 only sold 56 077. Just had a look at series II, there is a 2009 series II ox and 2010 tiger that sold out? But the series 1 has the same years on it as the series II?
They would be the major reasons I think. Things like: * Growing wealth in China and a larger middle class * Increasing popularity of online forums and blogs covering gold and silver * Ease of buying online * Word of mouth
Does a lot of Chinese in China buy Perth Mints Lunar? Not many local dealers are selling PM product in China. The main product still china coins and they have Lunar series too with different sizes and shape.
the same thing happens to all bullion silver coins with annual design change... pandas, koala, kooks (before the remint fiasco), britannias. Earlier years releases have lesser declared mintage because not many knows about stacking silver. With Internet and Youtube more and more stackers recommending semi-numis coins thus that created awareness to existing and new stackers. I am pretty sure Perth Mint will sell out all their lunar coins even if they up the mintage to 500k for Lunar series 3.
Spot price of silver low and little interest as the chart shows. http://www.kitco.com/charts/historicalsilver.html
I just found it strange that all series 1 had such a low declared mintage, but then the very next year the series 2 kicked over, it went to 300k mintage sell outs every year. Not a gradual increase, it just went from low sales for many years, to sell outs every year.
Also more marketing towards the Asian and European market. Can't remember where I read / heard it but...I think the Lunar program was introduced to increase exposure for Australian precious metal; the government got behind it to help our precious metal miners. Edit 2008 pdf - good reading Mission Statement and Chairman's Review - pages 9 and 10 http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/pub...003b979b/$file/gold+corporation+ar+2007-8.pdf
the 2008 mouse did not sell out straight away, there were a number of them minted in 2011 to reach the 300k limit http://d65852kwq1u8u.cloudfront.net/message-79472.html
Some of the Lunar I series are hideous, IMHO. Although some are very nice. I LOVE the pm lunar 2 series. Nicer than the Chinese Lunars, in my humble opinion.
The Series 1 mouse, ox & tiger coins were catch up so that there would be a silver S1 to go with the gold S1s that started in 1996 vs. 1999 for the silver. Since the PM minted them all at once, they didn't make very many. Possibly I just didn't notice them at the time, but I didn't see them at Apmex in 2007 and only saw the S1 tiger in 2008 for a couple of days before someone grabbed all of them.
And thank goodness because if it weren't for that I wouldn't have been able to purchase my first Perth Mint Lunar sealed roll of 20 for the decent price (at the time I did in late 2012) that I did. The quality of the 2008 S2 Mouse 1 oz silver coins got me hooked on Perth Mint coins in 2012. I've been a fan ever since that day. .
