It isn’t just New Zealand getting in on the Lord of the Rings bullion market, but Niue as well, with the launch of a coin celebrating the 20th anniversary of the premiere of the first of the Peter Jackson-helmed movie trilogy, ‘Fellowship of the Ring’. Where else would you start but the ring itself? The coin has a depiction of the iconic centrepiece of the story, giving the holder a good view of the inner and outer Elven inscriptions that run around it. The whole inscription is also reproduced around the edge of the coin in a wide border. The obverse is a bog-standard effigy of QEII.

The usual pairing of one-ounce silver and one-ounce gold, with now typical mintages of 20,000 and 200 pieces respectively, so no surprises there. Both come encapsulated only, so no fancy presentation for the gold in this case. One for the fans, for sure.

The fourth DC Comics bullion coin from the New Zealand Mint, following Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, Aquaman continues to fill out the roster of the Justice League in coin form. A decent series, in our view, Aquaman continues the series style of a full body depiction, with some appropriate background, and a character logo. They’re all quite dynamic looking and sure to please comic fans in the bullion market.

Again, a pair of one-ounce coins make up the range, one in 0.999 silver, the other in 0.9999 gold. Mintages of 15,000 and 150 are pretty standard now in this market, and both come encapsulated.

One of our favourite bullion series in progress at the moment, Pirate Queens offers a great look into a popular world, and does so with much artistic merit. This is the third and sadly, the last, of three coins. The best part of this series has been the differing designs on the gold and silver versions, taking a different view of the same scene, in this case Mary Read’s ship in battle with, and winning, against another. Everything about this looks great, especially the skull and swords logo, which also appeared on the first coin. It’s fair to say the series title, Pirate Queens’ is quite tenuously linked, when the designs make little actual reference to the historical characters, but that’s a small criticism.

Mintages on this series are very low, with just 10,000 of the one-ounce silver coins being struck, and a miniscule 100 pieces of the gold. The latter is presented in a box with a Certificate of Authenticity. A terrific series, we’ll be sad to see it finish so soon.

The second Royal Australian Mint coin we’re looking at here, their lunar series is easily one of our favourites, and unlike Pirate Queens, is actually issued for Australia itself. The tiger is a mix of the realistic, and a style that apes Asian art. It flows around its circular metal canvas beautifully, and the inscriptions are not only attractively done, but are also placed sympathetically, not infringing on the core artwork. The third coin in this series, it’s clearly one to watch.

The obverse is also well done, depicting all twelve of the lunar animals in a circular parade around the effigy of Queen Elizabeth II. With each issue, the animal parade rotates anti-clockwise, so that the current one takes pride of place at the top. The Lunar Series has a mintage bigger than most of the coins in this round-up, with 50,000 of the silver, and 5,000 of the gold representing a significant increase over them, especially the latter. Nevertheless, a great coin for the collection.

The fourth in the series, the East India Company debuted ‘Indian Wildlife’ in 2019 with a Tiger design, and followed it up with a Peacock, and then with an elephant. For 2022, we have the classic Indian cobra. As with the first two coins, there’s a wide border holding issue details, and the centre has a background field with a mesh background. The defining character is an attractive portrait of a cobra with a full-on threat display, one that we think is superior to the three designs that came before.

The obverse has a similar border and background field, but has the effigy of Queen Elizabeth II in place of the snake. We like this one. The border is a little wide, perhaps, but we’re being picky. Very nice, and with some attractively low mintages. The 65 mm diameter, five-ounce silver coin is a pleasant addition as well.

CORRECTION: We earlier said this was the third design, when it’s actually the fourth. We forgot the Tiger.

The latest videogame-inspired bullion round from APMEX represents a jump forward in time from the earlier classics, to a more modern example. Assassin’s Creed is a juggernaut in the gaming world, already having made the jump to films and more, and has a rich and varied visual appeal. The round has a silhouette portrait of the central character of the early games, complete with the logo at its centre.

The obverse side also carries the logo prominently, over which is jumping, in a parkour way, three assassins. A motto from the games is inscribed near the edge. The one shown here is the core release, but there are several others, including coloured, proof, and gold, which can all be purchased from APMEX as well. Quite a neat range, and proof that the gaming world is here to stay with numismatics.

Similar to the longer-running ‘Mandala Wildlife’ series, APMEX’s ‘Celtic Animals’ depicts various creatures in symbolic form – basically in a simplified outline, filled with symbols from Celtic culture. Not a standout series, but they seem popular enough to continue releasing them, especially when the sibling Mandala range is also taken into account.

This third coin depicts that biggest of good doggies, the Wolfhound. It’s a clean-looking coin, well-ordered around the edge, and has the good-looking coat-of-arms of the Republic of Chad on the obverse. A mintage of only 5,000 pieces is a bonus.

We covered the launch of Muenzen-Engels attractive ‘Fiji Cats’ coin in our first bullion coin round-up last October, but since then, the one-ounce silver coin has been joined by an antique-finished five-ounce variant, a coloured one-ounce silver, and a one-ounce gold. There are no changes to the original design, but they’ve added a coloured variant of the original, and a gold one. Upping the size somewhat, a five-ounce silver version with an antique-finish comes in with a 70 mm diameter.

The producer has just issued the first in their ‘Fiji Dogs’ series, which we’ll have a quicklook at later this week.

A perennial classic, the Cook Islands Bounty has been around in one form or another for many years now, dating back to 2009 at least, in its current form. While the base design has remained consistent, showing us a good view of the HMS Bounty, the background field has carried numerous looks, from the clean early issues, to the wavy mesh pattern that debuted in 2021, one that replaced the ‘webbing’ that was used from 2016-19.