Royal Mint releases 26 new coins to mark the new 10p coin with an A to Z of Britain It seems the Royal Mint has decided that a five-coin range isn't enough and has gone full blast with a new 26-coin series called The A-Z of Britain. Similar in concept to the Royal Australian Mints A-Z nature set, all coins were released simultaneously, but could be bought individually. Each depicts an aspect of British life, or at least a popularised romantic view of it. All are struck in 6.5 grams of sterling 0.925 silver and [...]

BIBLICAL STORIES by Numiscollect A few of the European independent coin producers have long-term series in their portfolio and Dutch producer Numiscollect is no exception. One of the most popular formats of choice is the fractional sterling silver one, as used by CIT for its perennial Mountains and Flora, World of Hunting and World of Wonder series. This series, which looks at famous stories in the bible, is one such beast. Biblical Stories debuted in 2011 with a pair of 15.5g (½oz) coins, released packaged singly, and to date is still going strong with twelve [...]

2017 GODS OF OLYMPUS SET by the Perth Mint One of the biggest hits of 2014 and a coin that kicked off a the whole modern numismatic trend for antiqued, high-relief ancient mythology, Zeus was the first of the Perth Mints Gods series. Since its debut, there have been four complete three-coin series and all have sold out. The release today has more than doubled the selection. Going back to the subjects covered in the 2014 and 2015 series, Gods of Olympus takes the same two-ounce format and produces a whole new set of designs. One [...]

2016-2017 WARRIORS OF HISTORY by the New Zealand Mint The New Zealand Mint debuted a new series in June 2016 called Warriors of History. It featured one of the most fascinating of all warrior classes, the Samurai and now, as the series builds up, it's becoming a fine look at an interesting facet of history, those that fight the wars. To date, the series has wandered through time from the 6th century BCE up to the Middle Ages and has looked across several regions of the world, although as you'd expect, Europe and the [...]

2014-2017 SWISS WILDLIFE by the Helvetic Mint One of the pioneers of ultra high relief (UHR) coin strikes and a company still pushing boundaries today, the Helvetic Mint has been producing this type of coin for many years now and amongst its many releases is its flagship Swiss Wildlife range. A series of one-ounce fine silver coins, Swiss Wildlife looks at some of the incredible fauna that inhabits this beautiful alpine country. Struck in fine 0.999 silver and given an antique finish, each coin is rimless, allowing the design to spread right up to the [...]

2017 ROMAN GLADIATORS by MDM Deutsche Munze The sequel to the nine-coin Norse Gods series released in 2016, Gladiators is an eight coin range of coins with an identical specification. Struck in high-relief and with an antique finish, these two-ounce fine silver coins depict the various classes of gladiator that fought for the enjoyment of the Ancient Roman citizenry. Sharing a similar visual style to the earlier Norse Gods coins, the first pair of the eight debuted in February 2017 from MDM Deutsche Munze, the German dealer responsible for Norse Gods. Choosing to step away [...]

2016-2017 KINGS OF THE CONTINENTS by the New Zealand Mint Despite the concentration on their very high profile Disney and Star Wars properties, the New Zealand Mint has always found time to have a few history and nature series on the go at the same time. Moving away from an annual release schedule, the last couple of years has seen sets of coins released at much faster rates. Kings of the Continents is one such series. On the surface an unambitious range of simple coloured coins, there remains a constant demand for nature coins, and [...]

SOS VENICE – END OR BEGINNING? (2016-2017) by the Mint of Poland With a first debut in October 2015, the theme of the series is the north-eastern Italian city of Venice. Highly unusual, Venice is sited on a group of 117 small islands set in the marshy Venetian Lagoon between the mouths of two rivers. It's connected together by numerous bridges spanning the canals that divide the islands. Because of the nature of the ground under Venice, the building foundations are based on closely-spaced timber piles of Alder wood driven into the sand and mud until they [...]

2009-2017 MINERAL ARTS by Coin Invest Trust There's been some intense competition in the art-architectural coin market for some years now. The pedestal that Coin Invest Trust's seminal Tiffany Art series has sat on for over a decade has been gradually chipped away at by an increasing number of rival series that have raised the quality threshold to hitherto unreached heights. Chief amongst these competitors is Mineral Arts, a series ironically also produced, but not issued by, CIT. Mineral Arts are typical architecture coins from the specification standpoint and follow Tiffany Art quite closely in that [...]

2016 AUSTRALIAN APEX PREDATORS by Australian Gold & Silver Exchange Now complete, Apex Predators is a series of five silver coins depicting those animals that reign at the top of the food chain in Australia, a country full of candidates for that throne. Released by the Australian Gold & Silver Exchange (AGSX), formerly Coin Club Australia, all of the coins are dated 2016 and were released over that period. We're fortunate in that of all the places on this planet, Australia has such an interesting, unique and diversified bunch of killers from which to choose some perfect [...]