The popular Stock Horse silver coin from the Perth Mint reaches the half-decade mark

The fifth of the Perth Mints extremely popular Stock Horse series of semi-numismatic bullion coins has just been put up for sale at the German dealer that commissioned them, EMK of Germany. First appearing in 2013 to much acclaim and rapidly selling out, the coin has become eagerly awaited every year since. Struck in an ounce of fine silver, last year saw an upgrade from 0.999 to 0.9999 fineness that is now the new standard.

Each issue depicts a Stock Horse, an Australian icon originally a combination of several breeds including the Thoroughbred, Arab, and Timor and Welsh Mountain  ponies. Their strength, stamina and courage earned them international recognition as the finest cavalry mounts in the world and established their place in Australian history and folklore. The artwork differs every year, showing the animal in a different, often very dynamic pose, much like 2017’s fine effort here.

Available in two types of packaging, each is distributed by different sellers. The most common type is that sold by EMK itself, some 9,000 of the 10,000 mintage. In this case each coin is simply sold encapsulated, but with a seperate numbered certificate. Since 2015 they’ve been pretty easy to pick up and tyhey’re well worth it in our view. The other way to buy is from the Perth Mint, the actual minters of the coin who sell 10% of the mintage domestically. These are sold mounted to a coloured card, a blisterpack, but are not serialised. Sales of this version are very brisk and sell-outs are expected.

Issued for Australia, the Queens effigy, denomination and issuer are all present on the obverse. The inscriptions on the reverse are the series title, date and composition. A good entrant in the series, of which you can a whole lot more in our Bullion Coin Guide to the range, it will ship from 04 April, with EMK having their version up for sale right now, currently €35. We expect the Perth Mint version to debut on that date, although their April releases go up for sale early this month on 30 March, so you might want to keep an eye out just in case.