They did what they did and although I don't think it was a good idea, apparently the people running the company did and they made a lot of money out of it. The company is still going and many of the people who were angered by this move are still customers, so the Mint's gamble paid off.
So far the Mint has discovered that it can...
Give misleading information about the mintages,
Re-mint previous year's coins,
Work around their own 'limited editions' by adding a privy,
Churn out product of questionable merit,
Include milk spots
Use questionable designs
And still many of their customers will keep coming back.
I know many of the issues have been dealt with and much is down to personal taste, but it does open your eyes a bit, this is not a company whose aim is to promote the hobby of numismatics, it is a company designed to take money off of numismatists, and it does it very well. The fact that their policies annoy a lot of numismatists doesn't stop them making money, and when your key performance indicators are "how much profit you can make" and not, "how well though of is the company by numismatists" then it really doesn't matter.
There are plenty of people who have committed themselves to getting a complete set of Kooks, or Lunars or Koalas or whatever and they will continue to buy them no matter what the design or price. In a way we are our own worst enemies, we continue to buy from them despite all the issues we know about.
In the case of the Privy, I liked having a variety because I made an effort to collect the dragons and this was at least affordable. I haven't bought any more Privy coins from them. And really if you look up the definition of a Privy it is something along the lines of...
A privy mark was originally a small mark or differentiation in the design of a coin for the purpose of identifying the mint, moneyer, or some other aspect of the coin's production or origin, for control purposes.
But now it is just another marketing gimmick to go along with Mint Marks, counterstamps and any of the other ways they can sell you the same coin multiple times.
The Dragon program in itself was ridiculous and I still don't know how many different types of coins were released. The stupid prices on the secondary market put me off trying to collect the coins that were released in low numbers so I think I only have one proof version.
I bought a couple of the lunar sheep and I usually buy one each of the various series just to sort of keep them going but beyond that I haven't bought anything from Perth Mint for a while, I was buying a roll of the coins as investments each year but I haven't bothered with that for a while.
