Cambodia joins the burgeoning limited mintage bullion coin market with its Lost Tigers series debut

We all know about the huge increase in choice in the limited mintage bullion coin realm, but it still isn’t often we get to see releases from new countries, and today is one of those days. Cambodia has been featured here before, with some releases via the Singapore Mint, some quite unusual ones at that, but this is a bullion first.

The Lost Tigers of Cambodia is the name of the new series, and as that name suggests, it’s all about the big cat itself. Tigers are in trouble, that’s no secret, and even Cambodia has had to reintroduce them after they became functionally extinct there over a decade ago. Fortunately, the programme to increase tiger numbers worldwide has had some good initial success, but numbers are still pressured by habitat loss and the ridiculous and outright dumb claims of Chinese traditional medicine. Cambodia now claims the second highest tiger population after India, although with a less than rigorous counting methodology.

The new series is off to a decent start. The portrait view of an adult taking centre stage, surrounded by a scattering of foliage, is an old school design, but that’s okay, it looks good. The obverse has that traditional Cambodian view of Angkor Wat, easily the most famous archaeological site in the country and one of the finest in the world. Inscriptions on both faces are well placed, minimal and unobtrusive

Two formats make up the range, and as is becoming increasingly common, it’s the old faithful pairing of a one-ounce 0.999 silver, and a one-ounce 0.9999 gold. The former has a tight mintage of 10,000 pieces, while the latter hits just 100, both competitive in the marketplace today. A good start to the series, and a new country, so perhaps a bit more collectability than normal with this one. The coin is an LPM exclusive and available to order right now.