No mint is more synonymous with the modern limited-mintage bullion market than the Perth Mint. Around a decade ago, they initiated an explosion in variety, far more than just the Koala/Kookaburra/Lunar coins that had generated that interest in the first place, and chief amongst those new options were the nature coins they were well known for.

One of the earliest was the Australian Swan, and the 2025 release is the ninth to date. Designed by Aleysha Howarth, it depicts a swan standing in shallow water with its wings outstretched. It looks fine, although not the best of the series to date. Like many of these bullion coins, we do wish the border was smaller to give the art more room to breath, but that’s hardly a criticism unique to the swan. A good addition to a popular series, the mint also has a coloured silver variant available with a 1,500 mintage.

The Perth Mints Wedge-Tailed Eagle series is even older than the swan, having debuted in 2014, so the 2025 coin is the 12th to date. This range is the work of one artist, namely John Mercanti, the former Chief Engraver of the United States Mint, who was also one of that mints most prolific artists.

This series is focused on Australia’s largest bird of prey, indeed one of the largest in the world, with a wingspan exceeding two metres. Mercanti has depicted the bird in many varied poses over the years, and after a relatively weak 2024 coin, he’s back on form with this fine effort. The bird is perched, and stretching its wings, in what is a powerful looking pose.

There’s no gold version of this one any more, with a solitary one-ounce silver being the only bullion variant on offer. A great design in a now iconic series.

China has had a long history with their iconic Panda bullion coin range, often carrying monster multi-million mintages, and the annual release with its unique design each year, has become a fixture in the numismatic calendar. Recently, the People’s Bank of China had added to that with a new release aimed squarely at their overseas market.

Called the Chinese Dragon, it features exactly that on its reverse face, overlaid on a background pattern of lines emanating from the centre. The dragon is inspired by the Gilded Dragon from the Tang Dynasty and the Nine Dragon Wall in Beijing’s Forbidden City, and is surrounded by auspicious clouds.

The obverse depicts the Great Wall of China snaking its way across mountain ridges. We particularly like this face, and the textured border should help with security. Overall, an impressive addition to the bullion market.

Scottsdale Mint were very late with the launch of their 2024 Eastern Caribbean 8 program, but they’re certainly making up for lost time. It was only last week that we covered the launch of the first two of the eight releases, and here we are already with the second pair. The first of them is this holiday scene for St. Vincent and The Grenadines. It looks okay, certainly not one of the best in the EC8 range, and the colour is overpowering, especially on the gold variant. The cleaner, uncoloured versions are superior, in my opinion.

That bullion side of things is mostly dealt with by the one-ounce silver coin with its 25k mintage. The other three are finished to a proof quality, with one silver and one gold having selective colouration on their reverse faces. Please do check out our comprehensive Bullion Profile of the range, where you can see over 200 coins released to date, and get more information on this neat series.

The fourth of the 2024 EC8 coins is the last of the eight nations to have its coat-of-arms as the design. It looks good, but like all of this type of subject, not the most exciting. Again, it’s the same four formats as above, with identical mintages, and the same obverse.

Masters of the nature-themed bullion coin, the Royal Canadian Mint, have added the Majestic Polar Bear to their repertoire, and this is the third in a small series charting the life of a Polar Bear cub, and its transition to adulthood. It’s one of the mints Premium Bullion coins, so it comes encapsulated, and mounted to a themed card.

The design by Michelle Grant is a fine one, with the bear exhibiting an excellent grasp of anatomy and perspective. It’s a shame the border is so wide, as we’d like to see the artwork take up more space. It shows the cub, now grown up, out in the wild on its own. It’s accompanied by a single paw print, rather than the pair on the first two issues, to emphasise that new reality. The obverse is the RCM’s own effigy of King Charles III.

Two formats in the range again. The one-ounce silver, and the tenth-ounce gold, both in 0.9999 fineness, and both identically presented. Some 20% of the mintage is sold as a ‘First Strike’, from the earliest struck coins, and these carry a $10 CAD premium, which is hardly noticeable on the gold coin, but represents an 11% uplift on the silver. Whatever you choose, you’ll be getting a great coin.