We’ve made no secret of our admiration for the way Germania Mint has built a whole bullion and numismatic coin range around the semi-historical Germania of Roman times. Taking cues from some of the more popular genres in the coin world, they’ve offered excellent designs to compete with the more traditional national producers, while simultaneously maintaining a coherent narrative of their own. Germania, and Allegories successfully targeted the national personification genre, inhabited by classics like Britannia, and there are also mythical beasts, and warriors to add to the mix.

In 2019, taking a leaf (no pun intended!) from the Royal Canadian Mint’s ‘Maple Leaf’ bullion coin, perhaps, they issued their first Mythical Forest coin with ‘Oak Leaf’. However, while the Maple has barely changed in its decades of issuance, this series has an annually changing design. There was no coin in 2020, but 2021 saw a pretty Chestnut Leaf, and now 2022 sees the launch of the Linden Leaf. The same guilloche pattern populates the background, and the beautiful bicephalous eagle fills the obverse. Very nice indeed, and there are proof gold and silver coins available for that crisper look, having a mirror finish background in lieu of the pattern.

One of the Perth Mint’s core bullion ranges, the Kookaburra has been going since 1990 and has, quite amazingly, managed to keep going with a nice varied selection of designs featuring the iconic bird. Usually, you think they’d run out of inspiration after a dozen or so, but the mint has continued to produce some terrific designs. To their credit, the standard has improved of late, with the adoption of a new style of border and font last year that, in our view at least, if far superior to those that came before.

We love the design of this one, Wade Robinson has done a terrific job depicting two birds, surrounded by the native Waratah plant. It seems there’s plenty of life left in the Kookaburra range yet. The usual three sizes – 1 oz, 10 oz, 1 kg – make up the selection on offer. Excellent release.

While lunar designs have eased off in ubiquity over the last couple of years, fortunately, there still remains a core of fine designs. The Perth Mint’s new Lunar Series III remains a highlight for us, but another Antipodean mint also produces an attractive range of their own. The Royal Australian Mint has been running through the lunar calendar with these new designs since the Year of the Rat in 2020. Another terrific looking coin, with a neat obverse featuring all twelve animals, which you can see with the Tiger design. As before, there are one-ounce gold and silver coins.

First published on 17 February 1936, The Phantom adventure comic strip tells the story of a fictional costumed crime-fighter who operates from the fictional African country of Bengalla. The series started out as a daily newspaper strip before expanding to a color Sunday strip on May 28, 1939. They are both still running today, although not at levels of popularity enjoyed in the past. The publisher, King Features, claimed in 1966 that the strip was appearing in 583 newspapers worldwide and that at its peak, the strip was read by over 100 million people every day.

This isn’t the first time the character has appeared on a coin, but it’s the first bullion coin we’re aware of. A typical Perth Mint design, it shows the character in a heroic pose, over a background filled with a repeating pattern made of motifs from his Skull Ring, and Good Mark Ring. Not the most well known of characters these days, it doesn’t prevent the design from looking bang on point. The coin has a mintage of 25,000 pieces, but 1,000 of those will be mounted to a themed card for sale by the Perth Mint in Australia/NZ. The rest are simply encapsulated.

A new series from Hong-Kong dealer-producer, LPM Group, ‘Golden Eagle’ features a perennial favourite of the coin world, birds of prey. This is a packed genre, so you’ll need to bring your A-game. Fortunately, this first coin, issued for Samoa, has a fine depiction of this iconic bird on it. The way the bottom stops is particularly clever, and it does a great job of getting the aggressive, predatory nature of the bird. The images aren’t the best, but we’re willing to bet this looks great in hand. The obverse is just an effigy of Queen Elizabeth II, with a small Samoan coat-of-arms beneath it.

Producers of some quite unusual and striking designs, Le Grand Mint has debuted their latest, a bullion coin, and it’s a complex piece of art depicting Durga, the divine mother in the Hindu religion. She is shown in multi-armed form, each carrying a weapon, and on the back of a lion. She is said to represent creative force, renewal, endurance and struggle, and have both the power of creation and the power of destruction.

It’s certainly a detail-packed and busy design on both faces, and has the potential to be a striking bullion coin in hand. We only have these renders at present, which show promise, but are a long way from what a finished coin will look like. We’ll be interested to see the finished article, and we’ll certainly be covering more of this producers product in future.

Cambodia seems to be rising in popularity as an issuer of modern coins, with the second issue in the ‘Lost Tigers of Cambodia’ series launching recently. Along with their ‘Wildlife of Cambodia’ range, newly launched with a Clouded Leopard design, it’s clear the countries focus is on its natural beauty. This coin moves away from the stylised portrait look of this stunning animal on the first issue, and goes for a more natural look, focusing on the tiger in its habitat. We prefer it, to be honest.

Three versions of the coin, all an ounce in weight. There’s a gold with a tiny 100 mintage, and a pair of silver variants, one coloured, and one clean. Like the other new Cambodian series, this is an LPM Group exclusive.

United States mega-dealer, APMEX, has done a decent job of bringing the world of John Wick into numismatic circles. A selection of bars and rounds, designed in keeping with the movie symbology, seem to have garnered a good level of popularity. They’re not the most exciting rounds to look at, but they seem to be well struck, and the franchise has a distinctive mythos that features coins. Just a two-ounce version, although there is also a limited coloured variant at a much higher price, but a mintage of just 500 pieces.