NOW YOU SEE IT. NOW YOU DON'T. What is 20 cm long, 10cm wide, 6cm thick, weighs 15kg, and worth about $600k? A gold bar in the Japan Mints Tokyo office, recently returned after a holiday in a local pawn shop. A fifty-year old mint officer, Yutaka Umeno, decided the bar of [...]
WHEN IS A DESIGN NOT A DESIGN There's an interesting thread over at the Silver Stackers forum regarding the mineral insert in a Mineral Arts Hogwarts coin and one worth highlighting because of the wider implications. What we call art-architectural coins are without doubt one of the highlights of modern numismatics. Employing [...]
Not so much in the way of nuggets this week as we've been busy with back-end stuff agin, tidying up more guides to bring them up to date and be more readable. We're going to continue doing this, as well as adding more bullion coin guides instead of the numismatic-orientated Coin Series Profiles over the next [...]
It's the third of June and time, although a day earlier than usual, for our latest weekly news nuggets roundup of rumours, releases and site updates, etc. We don't go into great depth here but hopefully you'll find some bits of interest. This week the news that the Royal Canadian Mint are on the verge of [...]
Obviously lots of little stories don't warrant a full, and often time-consuming post, so hopefully, every Sunday we'll do a little news nugget round-up of the week with all the bits of news we accumulate. A mix of new coin updates, mint reports and variants, site updates and additions. No doubt the variety will increase in [...]
Obviously lots of little stories don't warrant a full, and often time-consuming post, so hopefully, every Sunday we'll do a little news nugget round-up of the week with all the bits of news we accumulate. This is the first one and is a mix of new coin updates, mint reports and variants. No doubt the variety [...]
The Royal Mint has finally opened the doors to the public, albeit in a very controlled manner, after over a millenium in operation. The building of a new £7.7m visitors centre at the mints Llantrisant facility in South Wales, where they've been based since 1968, has finally opened up this quite secretive and secure operation to [...]
A member of one of the forums we frequent has had the misfortune to have a complete scumbag break into his house and make off with a healthy commemorative coin collection. We're asking all our readers to keep an eye out for anything on the list below, be it on eBay, Craigslist. pawn shops or wherever [...]
Back last September as part of our Ancient Gods week, we covered a new Odin coin, the first of a four-coin set, from US coin dealer Gainesville. Designed by noted coin sculptor Heidi Wastweek, the original artwork looked quite excellent, especially the enhancements made to what is usually a dull obverse on a coin issued for Niue. The full [...]
Meteorite adorned coins are clearly one of the hottest properties in the numismatic world at the moment, attracting big name mints, cool design, and plenty of innovation. They've been around for some time, with a new wave really kicking off in 2009 with a Moon and a Mars coin issued for the Cook Islands. Unlike the [...]
