Kicking off this look at RAM bullion with one of the more impressive series, Australia Zoo. Rather than showcase native wildlife, as so many Australian coins do, this one looks at rarer creatures from around the world, using a lens focused on the nation’s finest zoo. It’s one of the mint’s only series to have differing designs between the silver and gold versions, although each annual pairing stays with fundamentally the same animal.

The series has, at least to date, not strayed away from the big, popular animals, and in our view at least, has depicted them to an extremely high standard. The obverse is super-dull, unfortunately, with just the standard effigy of Queen Elizabeth II. A terrific series.

Given the general lethality of Australia’s fauna, it comes as little surprise that the rogues gallery is putting in an appearance on RAM bullion. The series launched with a superb Redback spider coin, ironically the same critter that kicked off the Downies/Perth Mint ‘Deadly and Dangerous’ proof series. The four releases to date have zigzagged between the land and the sea, and while the designs aren’t fully naturalised, they look good.

The obverse is a bog-standard effigy affair, sadly, but the series is lifted by the presence of a five-ounce silver variant rocking a big 65.1 mm diameter, which is an LPM exclusive. They tend to follow sometime after the one-ounce pair drop.

It seems that most major mints continue to offer a Lunar Calendar range, and the RAM is no different. Easily the equal of the Perth Mint’s Lunar Series III, this is, in our opinion, an exceptional series for the genre. The consistent style, comprising a circular area inscribed with Chinese characters, and a natural image of the animal covering the rest of the reverse, is universally well done.

The series has a common obverse, with the usual bland effigy design being shrunk to a central area, which is orbited by the lunar menagerie.

Of all the RAM's bullion coin ranges, Dolphins is by far the closest in style to a Perth Mint bullion range. The wide border filled with inscriptions is atypical in this selection, but certainly doesn't prevent this being a highly attractive look at one of our planets most beloved animals.

The artists have done a remarkable job bringing the group to life, with a varied mix of depictions, although the obverse is a standard effigy of Queen Elizabeth II.

While we have this series down as ongoing, it's been dormant since 2021, so may be defunct now. A nice design with a lightly themed obverse, it carries a map of Australia, sandwiched between a cartographic grid of latitudes and longitudes lines in the background, and a Southern Cross starfield in the foreground.

The only annual difference in the design was the presence of an animal privy on the map. It isn't much, and while the base design is very nice, perhaps the limited annual change didn't attract buyers in sufficient quantity. The unlimited mintage would not have helped collectability.

Now this is a terrific idea for a bullion series. Heraldry is a rich vein of inspiration in the numismatic world, and one that has been largely absent on Australian coins. Rather than just depict them in heraldic form, the designs idealise and naturalise the flora and fauna on them to produce unique interpretations.

Better yet, this happens across both faces, each highlighting different elements on the specific coat-of-arms chosen. The first issue was Australia itself, with subsequent releases working their way around the various states.

Not a first appearance in the modern coin world, the wildlife of Australia's Antarctic Territories is nevertheless a great theme, and the RAM is doing it full justice on the evidence of the first two designs. The scenes depicted are interesting ones, showing animal behaviour, and each works well with the coin shape. Definitely a series to watch.

Quite a unique idea in modern numismatics, triangular coins are rare, especially those with rounded points. Those with an upended orientation, even more so. Chuck in a custom obverse, and the Australian Shipwrecks series is very unusual, and there's nothing else quite like it in the bullion space.

The series chose some of the more famous wrecked vessels from the early colonial days. The obverse depicted a scene from the incidents aftermath, while the reverse carries an image of the ship. However, you may notice the inscription underneath it is inverted. In actuality, when the text is right side up, the ship is inverted, meant to represent it sinking. A neat series, there's also an attractive antique finished silver version. The series concluded at 4 issues.

A new series, just one issue old at the time of publication, it's a nice idea for a series, especially given that Australian fauna has been extensively covered on coins, including by the RAM. it's also another series with a custom obverse, always a nice addition. On the evidence of this first release, that obverse looks to be unique to each issue

An interesting idea, impressively realised, it will be interesting to see if the flora in Australia is as esoteric as the fauna.

It almost goes without saying that the various Antipodean mint’s would commemorate this iconic structure’s 50th anniversary, but the Royal Australian Mint have gone a little further in making a bullion coin in both one-ounce silver, and one-ounce gold formats. Artist Adam Ball has crafted an attractive design, seamlessly showing the building transitioning from interior to exterior views in a simplified construction drawing elevation. A pair of swirling background patterns, one seemingly representing the water in the harbour, the other the passage of the stars across the sky, are nice touches, and the latter has an anniversary logo overlaid upon it.

The obverse is the usual simple effigy of Queen Elizabeth II, incorporating the memorial dates.

A wander through the history of women pirates from around the world reveals there are more than you'd think. Such names as Anne Bonny and Mary Read have already appeared, although the incredible Chinese pirate, Ching Shih, is without doubt the most successful of them all. This series is particularly impressive in that, like the Australia Zoo series, it carries different designs for the silver and gold variants.

Those designs do maintain a pattern, however, with the silver coin displaying the ship sailing out of the coin, and the gold sailing into it. About the only negative we can see is that there's very little to tie in the pirate, and the vessel. These are more pirate ship coins, but are no less attractive for it. Mintages are particularly low for the RAM, and issued for the Solomon Islands, not Australia.