Poor old Dunkleosteus. Considered for years to be this giant bony fish with an armoured skull, and rocking a length of up to ten metres, new estimates put its length at little more than 3–4 metres instead. We still hold out hope that new research makes it a behemoth again, but it’s still a huge animal with a powerful jaw, so we remain glad we won’t ever meet one.

Prehistoric Life, a 12-coin, 4-year bullion programme, has been a favourite here for some time, and 2023 sees it conclude. Dunkleosteus is the obvious subject, and only one more issue, Stegosaurus, remains to come in July. The design pictures the fish well, in its pre-2023 longer form, and the bubbles are a nice touch to busy up what would have been a sparse background.

There are the usual variants, with one-ounce silver versions coming in clean and coloured form, and there’s a minigold (0.5 gram) gold coin to complete the range. Another great addition to the range, and the Stegosaurus looks great as well, so a series the lover of the prehistoric world will no doubt find fascinating.

More EC8 to go with the pair we looked at a few days ago, so we won’t go over the whole thing again. This one is issued for St Kitts & Nevis, and depicts a surfer underwater, no doubt recovering from a wipe-out. It sounds a little odd for a coin, but we think it works very well, encapsulating the island’s tourist nature so well. The coloured silver looks decently restrained as well.

The last of the eight 2022 EC8 coins to debut is another of the national coat-of-arms designs. Only Dominica, St Lucia, and St Kitts have yet to have one, so should the programme continue, we’d expect to see at least one next time. It’s a nice looking design, so a decent one to end the 2022 programme on.

Like Prehistoric Life, World’s Wildlife is a varied selection of nature coins, predominantly focused around one-ounce bullion coins, but with a good range of unique proof additions as well, which we’ll cover another time. After the Giraffe, Whale, Eagle and Bear, we’re back in the sea with Ocean Rays, and it’s another good design, featuring one of these strange beasts breaching the surface, alongside one of those vertical rock towers like those in Halong Bay, but without the vegetation and the Bond villain’s laser.

We’ve been super impressed with the revamped designs of the Perth Mint’s core ranges over the last couple of years, and this Kookaburra is the perfect example of that. The design is very pretty, one of the best to date in this decade’s long series, The Perth Mint has a habit of releasing limited mintage specials to coincide with many of the world’s premier coin shows, and they’re at it again with this one for the Brisbane Money Expo in Australia.

It’s a bullion coin at heart, but tweaked with a coloured privy mark depicting a brolga, a large grey crane famous for its dancing, and the official bird emblem of Queensland. Instead of just a capsule, it comes mounted on a themed card, carrying colour artwork of the coin design. Just 2,000 will be issued. An attractive coin.

Artist Glyn Davies has applied his skills to the latest interpretation of the East India Company’s classy ‘Una and the Lion’ series. The fourth in the series to date, it follows the debut of a gold and silver proof range. Seated next to an imposing lion, Una is shown in traditional garb, and surrounded by flowing flora. Another pretty design, there’s also an effigy of King Charles III on the obverse that is different from the Royal Mint one.

There are one, and two-ounce fine silver versions, carrying identical designs outside the denomination/weight inscriptions.

We’re all familiar with the work of former US Mint Chief Engraver, John Mercanti, mainly for his work on the iconic American Silver Eagle, but also with the very popular Perth Mint ‘Wedge-tailed Eagle’ series of bullion and proof coins, now closing in on its second decade. While that Perth Mint range features realistic portrayals of a bird-of-prey, this one, said by LPM to be the first in a series, is very much in the US style of classic numismatics.

The eagle is in full horizontal flight, with the sun ray background putting in an appearance. The obligatory inscription, ‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ sits on the reverse, along with the word ‘LIBERTY’. It’s all very United States, and we can see it going down well there. The only format is a one-ounce silver, which has an unlimited mintage,

A stylised seahorse features on the sixth in the APMEX-distributed Caribbean Silver series, much like it has on previous releases in the range, and it’s another neat looking coin. The Seahorse range has a distinctive style of its own, and the animal is unusual enough to keep interest going. There’s a gold one as well, also an ounce in weight, and sporting a mintage of just 100 pieces.

Not to be confused with the South African Mint’s long-running Big Five Africa range, which showcases the five animals most dangerous to hunters on that continent, Big Five Asia features the five animals in Cambodia most at risk from hunting – a sad reality in Asia more than anywhere else, where backward medical superstitions contribute heavily to animal extinctions.

The first is a perennial favourite of the numismatic world, the elephant, hunted for its ivory, mainly because people are greedy and stupid. Fortunately, a spotlight is being shone on the plight of animals there, so hopefully, things will improve. The depiction is actually excellent, although the official images do little to show them off as such. The surrounding flora is extensive, and the animal is an integral part of it, rather than just being plonked on top, like some others we won’t mention.

If this is to be the standard going forward, it should be a good set for the collector, especially with a mintage under 10k in base form. All three variants tip the scales at a troy ounce each.