High times ahead! Numiscollect journey back to the Swingin' Sixties with their latest cannabis coin One of the more unusual themes for a series of precious metal commemorative coins, Cannabis is nevertheless a large part of popular culture today, and has been for the last six decades. The modern roots of this growth in popularity is without doubt the 1960's. A period of social change [...]
St Peters Basilica is the first of Mauquoy's Infinity Minting hand finished silver coins We've previously covered a coin struck by Mauquoy in Belgium and it was an excellent and ambitious piece showing a lion portrait. This new release is a move away from the extreme levels of high relief used on that coin, but not a move away from high-relief itself. Collectors who loved the Lion [...]
First silver coin issued for five seperate countries and carrying all five national emblems debuts The commemorative coin market relies heavily on smaller countries around the world allowing them to be issued in their name. It's a mutually beneficial agreement that brings in much needed income in many cases (Niue Island has a population of less than 2,000, for example) and on the flipside allows a greater [...]
Enamelled kilo silver coin from Benin remembers the wreck of the RMS Titanic. Taking a look at some of the more unusual coins that have been released recently, we're kicking off with a hefty kilo chunk of fine silver from European producer AllCollect. Known mainly for their Golden Enigma gilded and ruthenium-plated bullion coins, and for their Masterpieces of Art and Windows of Heaven series, AllCollect have [...]
Numiscollect like to experiment with unusual designs and subjects for their coins, and being based in the Netherlands, I guess it was a natural fit that many peoples favourite plant would find itself adorning a silver coin. The Cannabis plant has a long association with the Dutch capital Amsterdam, home as it is to the cafe culture and liberal attitude that made the use of the plant for recreational purposes tolerated [...]
The newest in German coin producer MCI-Mints ever expanding Silverline silver bullion coins has now launched, and it's the keenly awaited 2016 entrant in their popular Benin Elephant 'Protection de la Nature' range. This is the third annual release for Benin, the first in 2014 spawning several variants such as gilded and kilo coins, and the 2015 joining in with antique and 2oz proof versions. They're a pretty standard [...]
Leipzig-based mint, MCI launched a new series of one-ounce silver bullion coins back in early 2014 and the coin went on to be a big success. Following that up, a new Benin Elephant design debuted in 2015 and was likewise well-regarded. Unlike the big guns in the silver bullion coin world, the Benin Elephant is strictly limited to a run of just 5,000 and therin lies much of the appeal. Nice design, tight mintage [...]
The Lunar Year of the Goat coin flood continues with almost every possible permutation of shape, colour and insert hitting the shelves, mostly continuations of existing series. We've had a new take on the subject matter with Son Montuno's Lunar Skull coin, and now we've got a new take on the inserts with a coin that needs a shave. Featuring what the mint is calling 'haptic perception', this concept refers to the process [...]
The second in MCI-International's new range of one-ounce silver bullion coins has been released and they're clearly setting them up as a rival to the well-regarded Somali Elephant series. These coins have a mintage of only 5,000 pieces and as such are well worth investing in, a situation reminiscent of the early Rwandan Wildlife and just mentioned Somalian series, whose early entrants appreciated quite heavily because of similar, early mintage limits. As before, [...]
Brand new silver bullion coins don't come along very often, but with the increasing openness of African Nations to put their names to coins, it wasn't going to be long before another appeared. The new kid on the block has been out for a few weeks now and is issued in conjunction with the African state, the Republic of Benin, a country bordered by, amongst others, fellow coin issuers Togo and Burkina Faso. Minted in [...]
