Launching in 2017 with a Spider-Man coin, the Perth Mint stepped away from its comfort zone of nature themed silver bullion coins with a coin taking advantage of the mass of publicity around the biggest movie franchise of all time – the Marvel Comic Universe. Despite that, this coin series has remained firmly grounded in the imagery of the comics and not the movies. Designs are instantly recognisable and very dynamic. It would have been easy to choose static poses and let the buyer’s imagination do the rest, but the mint has done a fine job bringing the characters alive.

The obverse is a simple, unmodified design, with the Ian Rank Broadley effigy of Queen Elizabeth II surrounded by issue details. Just a single version of each design is available. Unusually for a mint that defines the term ‘variant’ and thrives on producing seemingly endless numbers of them, the bullion coin is it. An ounce of 0.9999 silver with a 40.6 mm diameter is a standard format at the Perth Mint. The mintage of each coin is a reasonably tight 50,000 pieces, and they’re available individually, in rolls of 20, or in boxes (100 or 300).

Also issued are card-mounted coins, similar to those used for the Australian Stock Horse series. The horse coins, the earlier ones at least, enjoyed some impressive appreciation on the aftermarket, but it’s too soon to see if the Marvel Comics range will follow that example. Just 1,000 of each design is being offered, presented like this, except for the 2017 Spider-Man coin that was sold out before this programme was developed. It would be nice to see the mint sell 1,000 serialised Spider-Man cards without coins on a one-per-person, first-come, first-served basis, just so that collectors can get a set. The series is distributed everywhere outside Australia by Hong-Kong based dealer, LPM, and seems to have concluded.