are Lunar's killing off the Kook's of this world?

miniroo

miniroo

Well-Known Member
Silver Stacker
It's seems pretty clear that the Koala in silver is virtually becoming extinct from stacker's minds.
and I get the feeling the silver Kookaburra if suffering a bit, going by the availability and relatively low prices for early releases.
sure there's key years and there's reprint years, but with new stacker's coming in all the time, I would of thought they'd take up the slack.

It makes sense for a new stacker/collector to want to go with what's seemingly hot, it's the safest bet for a small stacker, going for the highest premium maker in the shortest time.
aswell as wanting to go with what seems cool, Lunar's are cool, kinda.

The dragons have a cool name and theme, the snake is mean but has no real bite, this year it's the horse, well it's still a lunar so let's buy it! but the horse isn't real cool, not like a dragon is, but the dragon is old news so you buy the horse. next year it's the Lunar Sheep, aha! and follow you will, building your flock of all flocks, monkey's won't be too far away, hey hey, and then,








wait for it.....








chookyback.gif



The Lunar Chicken! Oh can't wait for the chook, I'm starting to wonder, is this really a lunar series or a product list from a chinese butcher shop?
then the dog, the pig, the rat, see the pattern? the Ox, the TIGER, credit card year that one, the wascally wabbit and around it goes.

But we have a zodiac of our own, and ours is much cooler than the chinese lunars when it comes to bullion.
if I was in china wanting to buy aussie bullion, i'm not sure i'd want more lunars, i'd go for Australian themes, something different.

Anyway my point was that these lunar's are killing off what should be the popular stuff, the kook's and well, koala's but they look like a joke so I don't blame anyone not wanting them.

Our Zodiac has got great animals, They would be so much more awesome than chinese lunar's, for a start they actually relate to what many in the western world believe in.
if you walked down the street and asked most people in Australia what chinese lunar animal they were, they'd have no idea, no real care, but ask what star sign and straight up, they know it.

Imagine, it would be insanely sick, The Silver Bull, how would that year be? sure there's bull's around but a perth mint bullion bull, man, the gold bull would kick serious butt.
The Lion, sweet, the 2017 silver scorpions, i'll take 4 rolls of them, and Virgo, well, i'll leave that to the imagination ;)
 
I suppose the flaw in your argument is that if the Perth Mint did star sign bullion, there'd be 12 releases a year, one each month. But the Perth Mint wouldn't stop there, first week of the month would be the coin's release, 2nd week would be the re-release with privy. Week three would be the release of the coin in colour, and week four would be when they'd finally be releasing the 5oz version to go with the other 8 sizes they've been selling for the past month.

Now that's how you kill a series!
 
The Koala extinct from stackers minds...not this stacker.

Some of the earlier Koala's were unloved but there's gaining support for Koala's because they are mint to order; check the 2010 1oz Koala, it's premium has increased a hell of a lot in the past year.

I think there's a stack of stackers waiting for the release of "hopefully" Perth's bullion Kangaroo which I prey will be mint to order.

There's been lots of huffing about mintages in the last couple of years; it would be in Perth's interest and stackers to maintain the mintage limit of 300,000 coins for the 1oz Lunars and or perhaps reduce the Kookaburra back to 300,000 as well.

With the addition of the privies for the Lunars, Kooks and Koala's there's plenty of metal for Perth and dealers to sell.

What ever Perth decide.. they can make stackers and collectors happy by keeping low mintage limits on the Kooks and Lunars and use the Koala and Kangaroo as their true bullion mint to order coins.


H
 
this is how i see it..we like lunars,now we dont,now we like them again...we like kooks and then we dont and we like them again...prove me wrong :lol:
 
Lunars are far more interesting than Kooks and Koalas. Besides, the lower mintage of the Lunars is very attractive to many people.

People don't necessarily have to know what each Lunar animal represents in the Chinese Lunar zodiac in order for people to like the animals depicted. For example, I highly doubt that most Westerners who buy Lunar Tigers know what this animal represents to the Chinese in their zodiac but Westerners sure have an affinity with tigers in general as probably do most people in the world. The same goes with the Lunar Mouse/Rat....most Westerners don't know that the positive traits that the mouse/rat represents are ambitious, intelligent, persuasive, sociable, charming, charismatic, shrewd, industrious, meticulous, tenacious, artistic, and eloquent. Most Westerners also do not know that the Chinese zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Mouse/Rat. Probably that's the reason why the Perth Mint began series 2 with the Mouse/Rat....why they didn't with series 1 is either ignorance on their behalf or they were desperate to capture a (possible) growing Asian customer base.



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mmissinglink said:
...the Lunar Mouse/Rat....most Westerners don't know that the positive traits that the mouse/rat represents are ...
Click to expand...

How long has it been year of the mouse anyway? I thought that was something Disney came up with because mice are cuter than rats and easier to sell to an occidental market.

Same with Year of the Rabbit, wasn't it Year of the Hare? but got changed because Rabbits are cute and Hares are associated with Jugged Hare, and not at all nice.

Not that I know much about the Lunar animals, all I know is I like Dragons and Chinese Dragons look nicest of all (Not a fan of winged dragons)
 
Mice and rats are different species....your point well taken. I don't know the answer to whether the Chinese might distinguish between a mouse and a rat to symbolize those positive characteristics...but it seems most Eurocentric Westerners do seem to still have that centuries old hysterical fear of rats.

My first Lunar coin ever purchased was a series 2 Mouse....and many months before my first purchase of a Koala. I have yet to purchase a Kook....it's not that I wouldn't want to own Kooks, just that I have very limited money at this time and I have to set strict limits on each Mint I buy from and since I already purchased a few Perth Mint Lunar coins I'm not going to start buying Kooks since they're not worth the effort for me.

But that's just my personal story....what explanation other coin buyers have for preferring Lunars over Kooks I'm not sure. The fact that Lunars are hot right now is only a small part of that story because it doesn't fully answer the why Lunars are the hot Perth mint series in the first place.


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There are so many designs that I really like :)

And the Perth Mint 2012 Koala is high on my list.
 
swoydaz said:
There are so many designs that I really like :)

And the Perth Mint 2012 Koala is high on my list.
Click to expand...




Especially the 2012 carded Koala, mintage 2,315 :)
 
Holdfast said:
check the 2010 1oz Koala, it's premium has increased a hell of a lot in the past year.

H
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Why has the 2010 Koala gone up so much? I have several, but they are in 2 coin carded FUN sets with the 2009 Koala.
 
^ Sometimes all it takes for interest and demand to go up is an enthusiastic article in a widely read coin journal to be written. Or maybe there is recent clamor about this particular year Koala on several forums?
 
dccpa said:
Holdfast said:
check the 2010 1oz Koala, it's premium has increased a hell of a lot in the past year.

H
Click to expand...

Why has the 2010 Koala gone up so much? I have several, but they are in 2 coin carded FUN sets with the 2009 Koala.
Click to expand...


Hi dccpa...who knows what drives sentiment towards a certain coin...popularity is as perennial as the grass. ;)

Having said that, the 2010 Koala has the third lowest mintage (233,531) so maybe that's got something to do with it, in addition the 2010 carded Koala has the second lowest mintage of 2,752 specimen coins. (Carded coins have also provided a lot of exposure recently)

Above all and this is my personal opinion...if you look at the designs of the Reverse from 2011 to 2014 this group of coins seems to be in it's own group, the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 coins seem to be another group and...the 2010 is the last in that group.

Folk who haven't really looked at the series may not realise that the Koala series is from 2007 to 2014 and onwards; it's only when you look at the Obverse of all the coins that you realise they are a series.

H
 
As a brand new stacker, my first piece of silver was the Series 2 Lunars.
Theyre just plain sexy. The actual animal design is great, the borders and reverse are quite sleek, very modern and well thought out design all over.
I also like the fact that theyre flatter/wider than Kooks/Koalas, makes them seem larger I suppose?

The animal designs on the Kooks/Koalas are quite nice, and I do like them.
However the overall design appears quite old and outdated to me, especially the reverse!
The Series 1 Lunars suffer from the same dated look, and I wont be getting any based on apperance.

If they modernised the look of the Kooks/Koalas to something that wasnt designed in Microsoft Word back in the 80s, I would be buying a whole lot more.

Mintages and all that dont meant much to me at the moment, as a 20something year old new stacker, I just like shiny things :)
 
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