The Perth Mint wraps up its Stock Horse coin programme with a gilded composite of the five issues

One of the most popular small mintage bullion coins of recent years, the Perth Mint’s Stock Horse series debuted five years ago to great frenzy. The coin was commissioned for sale by German mega-dealer EMK, although because of currency requirements, 10% of the mintage had to be sold in Australia. Each design depicted a famous Australian icon, the Stock Horse, a combination of several breeds including the Thoroughbred, Arab, and Timor and Welsh Mountain ponies.

Original comments indicated the series ending after ten releases, but the fifth coin is now said to be the last and to mark the series end the Perth Mint and EMK have produced a five-ounce silver coin combining all five prior issues into a single composite design. One of the Perth Mint’s impressive high-relief strikes, each of the five horses is picked out with gilding and the background has been cleverly modified to create a single panorama. Inscriptions are limited to the series title at top and the composition at the bottom. A P5 mintmark is also present.

Also launched is the 2017 five-ounce gold version. Like previous coins, the 2017 entrant carries the design from the previous years silver coin – we’re expecting a 2018 gold coin next year to round out that set. These are high-end coins with a mintage of just 99 pieces. Don’t expect much change from €8,000 for one. Like the silver coins, the obverse is a simple effigy of Queen Elizabeth II encircled by the usual inscriptions. Both of these new coins are very well presented in good quality coin boxes and classy outer shippers and are available now from EMK.

It will be a shame to see this series end, but there has been a softening of interest over the last couple of years, no doubt due to rising prices of the first few coins. The new gilded silver composite coin is a fine way to go out in style and we can see this having great appeal, especially with the mintage being only 500 coins in size. The gold looks great, but remains within the range of the lucky few. We’ll add these coins to our Bullion Coin Profile of the Stock Horse series over the weekend when it’s tidied up.