What do you make of colorized Ag coins?

Gatito Bandito

Gatito Bandito

Active Member
I don't typically care for them, as I prefer either "nude" or naturally toned.


But along the way I've run into a few colorized where I think they work well & look pretty cool. Enough so that I've been thinking of picking up a couple.

Never seen any in person -- only in photos & YouTube videos. How do they look in real life?


And I'm not sure of the exact production process, but how will the color hold up over the years & decades? And what about toning, if any?


Are they worth it? Glad you got them? Any favorites?
 
Mostly done after market
Don't like them
Hard to sell
= pig with lipstick :o
I'm sure somebody will come along with some good points :P
 
It's completely dependant on the coin. I think the perth mint has done a good job where only a part of the coin is coloured and you have plenty of frosted and high polish silver to look at.

That said I like the look of a good bit of honest silver. I wish someone would make a super low premium 1oz blank. I saw somewhere that Maloney's company makes a low premium plain silver coin (unicorns? ) but I'm not sure it's THAT cheap.
 
Gatito Bandito said:
I don't typically care for them, as I prefer either "nude" or naturally toned.


But along the way I've run into a few colorized where I think they work well & look pretty cool. Enough so that I've been thinking of picking up a couple.

Never seen any in person -- only in photos & YouTube videos. How do they look in real life?


And I'm not sure of the exact production process, but how will the color hold up over the years & decades? And what about toning, if any?


Are they worth it? Glad you got them? Any favorites?
Click to expand...


I like the coloured Dragon coins and...I think some of them could be worth a few bucks in the future.

Special inks are required for optimal quality. As only very small quantities of ink are transferred during the pad-printing process, the pigmentation must be highly concentrated. The Perth Mint mixes its ink with hardener, which cures to leave an exceptionally durable finish, resistant to fading, as well as solvent and chemical attack. - See more at: http://blog.perthmint.com.au/2011/06/24/how-does-the-perth-mint-colour-coins/#sthash.OiCN6oDe.dpuf
http://blog.perthmint.com.au/2011/06/24/how-does-the-perth-mint-colour-coins/

This video shows how they are made.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUyFUumqLPc[/youtube]
 
And...when the bullion coins are initially designed, they are designed as coloured coins.

The bullion coins (Standard unc) look a bit weird but that's only because they aren't coloured.

Sometimes a designer will be lucky enough to design a coin that looks great as a bullion or coloured. (Example the Tiger or Dragon)

A really good example is the 1oz series 2 Lunar Tiger; when the bullion coin was released, everyone disliked it but... when the coin was issued as coloured it looked very nice and it is now quite collectable.

I agree with BB, I don't think there's a huge market in Australia atm so perhaps buying a handful for a collection is the way to go.

Having said that, what is disliked one year maybe in fashion several years down the track.

Coloured coins are generally aimed at the Asian market and as we know, there is huge Asian interest in Australia.

I own a few coloured coins so DYODD.
 
There's nothing wrong with colored coins in general.

Some look better (are better suited to color application) than others.

Here's a small sampling of some that look fine to me:

8838_yearofrat2008.png

2008 Pitcairn Islands Lunar Year of the Rat .999 silver - 15,000 mintage produced by the New Zealand mint



8838_2013-snakewisdom-wealth-silver-two-coin-set-case.jpg

Tuvalu 2013 Lunar Year of the Snake Wealth and Wisdom .999 silver 2-coin set - 1,500 sets produced by the Perth Mint



8838_tokelau-unicorn-5-creatures-of-myth-legend-colored-silver-coin-year-of-the-horse-proof-1-oz-2014-rev.jpg

Tokelau 2014 Creatures of Myth and Legend Unicorn Coulored .999 silver proof - mintage 2,500 produced by the Perth Mint?




8838_lunar_colored_coins.jpg

Perth Mint Lunar Series One and Two 5 oz .999 silver coins



As for guilded or gilt coins, here's an amazing set
8838_rwanda_2013_3d_snake_silver_3-coin_set_a.jpg

Rwanda 2013 3D Sculpted Year of the Snake .999 silver 3-coin set - mintage uncertain

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8-9J4o4vVg[/youtube]





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Many stackers consider "colorized" and gilded coins to be (and refer to them as) "coins with crap on them". It's all a matter of personal taste---some think they're simply adorable, while others hate them. If you're going to buy into any, you'd probably do best to avoid aftermarket gilding/paint jobs. I doubt they'd resell as easily or quickly as original mint-gilded/painted coins. In addition to that, the cost of mint-gilded coins tends to be close to if not stratospheric. I think reselling popular proofs (Libertads, Pandas, Perth Lunars, etc) would be easier to do and more lucrative than trying to resell a lot of the paint jobs. All that being said, I recently bought a "colorized" 5oz Perth Lunar Series 1 dog. It was in pristine condition and for $120 USD, I couldn't pass it by. That's my first, last and only "keeper" painted coin.
 
Actually, colored Tigers are awesome...here the Perth Mint's 2010 silver kilo proof colored Tiger with golden topaz gemstone


8838_2010_tiger_colored.jpg





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Well, colored coins look ok, but I consider the color as contamination, such as Milk spots ect.

Gold gilded silver coins are nicer in my opinion.
 
Snoopy said:
Well, colored coins look ok, but I consider the color as contamination, such as Milk spots ect.

Gold gilded silver coins are nicer in my opinion.
Click to expand...
I think of the colour as a way to hide milk spots. Same with artificial antiquing.
 
Here's a closeup of a 1/2 ounce coloured goat I used to have. The colourisation looks cheap and poorly aligned.

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I think the printing method is too dated, very poor quality when compared to every other aspect of the Perth mint.

I also think the fact the coins can't have definition under the ink is an issue that needs to be addressed.
Having said that, it probably costs a fortune to rectify these issues - if they can be rectified in the first place that is.

So not a fan, mainly due to the print quality.
 
Snoopy said:
Well, colored coins look ok, but I consider the color as contamination, such as Milk spots ect.

Gold gilded silver coins are nicer in my opinion.
Click to expand...



While you may not like the application of color into a coin's design, what you are claiming would be no different than suggesting that any part of a coin's design is a form of contamination like milk spots, which is rather an absurd suggestion. A contaminate, by definition, must be something foreign (usually unclean) and therefore contamination is one object coming into contact with another (unclean) separate thing or substance which adulterates that aforementioned object.

Design features such as devices, a portrait, a rim, the date, a legend, the denomination, any mint mark, gilt or guilding on a coin, any bi-metallic addition in a coin, dentils, whether a coin's edge is reeded or not, gems or minerals embedded into the design of a coin, or color added to a coin as part of the intended design are anything but contamination.





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