With a range so copious that we produced a themed guide all of its own to it, the New Zealand Mint’s Star Wars range has covered all sorts of formats, and all sorts of subjects, but there hasn’t been a series covering what fans love the most about the films – battles. To this end, the mint is starting its Battle Scenes series, depicting some of the most iconic parts of the many movies.

First is from ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, often considered the high-point of the franchise, the battle on the ice planet Hoth. Full of now iconic hardware, like the AT-AT, and the Snowspeeder, it was a clever change from space battles, and has become one of the most loved scenes in Star Wars history. The coin depicts the battle from the Empire’s side, with an AT-AT, an AT-ST, a Snowtrooper, and an Imperial Star Destroyer. It does so with colour highlighting for the background, but is otherwise very reminiscent of the producers ‘Classic’ range.

Unusually, this is currently only available as a three-ounce coin, so the mint is obviously positioning this as a limited, premium offering. Packaging looks to be as excellent as you would expect from the NZ Mint. A good idea for a series, as there’s plenty of material to draw from, but how popular the three-ounce format is in this genre, remains to be seen.

APMEX have been going great guns over the last couple of years, pushing an eclectic selection of shaped and/or coloured bullion rounds for a variety of popular culture franchises. One of the most numerous is their ‘Peanuts’ range, showcasing the ultra-popular comic strip world created by Charles Schulz, and the round we’re looking at here, is part of the latest batch.

One of the most loved characters since its introduction over 55 years ago, is Woodstock, a bird friend of Snoopy. It’s an absolutely iconic and quite brilliant character design, and this round captures all the appeal, perfectly. It’s very simple, which matches the comic strip style, and comes in a neat, themed tin. Even though it’s a round, it has a small mintage of just 999 pieces, and I absolutely love it.

The other core franchise in the New Zealand Mints wide range is, undoubtedly, classic Disney. There have been numerous coins featuring the legendary movies put out by the giants of the animated world, but now the mint has brought its new three-ounce silver format to the franchise with a very pretty homage to the 1940 classic, Pinocchio.

There’s no gimmickry here, just a scene that summarises the core of the movie so well, and a clever strip of film cells showing several other scenes. Again, like the Star Wars Hoth coin, this is a three-ounce only release, so it seems the mint is trying out some new strategies to keep interest up after a solid few years of continuous issues. There’s a lot of appeal here for the Disney aficionado looking for something of high-quality, and longevity.

The ninth Faces of the Empire coin continues to mine the lesser known versions of the Galactic Empire’s many military forces, and this time we have the Imperial Patrol Trooper. As you can see in our huge Star Wars coin guide, this is the fifth white helmet, and they all look quite similar, so we’re reaching the stage when only the super-fan is going to know what they’re looking at.

Nevertheless, these are well-designed, well struck, and well presented. Besides, if you’re still buying after nine issues, we’re pretty sure these are exactly what you like…

Winnie the Pooh, originally written by A.A. Milne and drawn by E.H. Shepard, has been a perennial children’s favourite for many decades. It has, in recent years, also become a semiregular part of the Royal Mint’s numismatic range, but licencing being what it is (chaotic, it seems), we now have Precious Metal Collectors issuing a Winnie the Pooh coin as well.

Eschewing their Bi-Metal Max copper-cored technology, this is a traditional, shaped strike, complete with colour, and is a charming depiction of Winnie and Piglet, sitting on a log. Sensibly given the subject, this isn’t one of PMC’s bigger coins, keeping it a relatively affordable one-ounce in weight. A neat enough debut, although quite why the mintage for a kids’ teddy bear coin is a satanic 666 remains a mystery… 😉 PMC have said that better images will be forthcoming soon, along with a video, but we only have these renders at present.

Another of a new wave of releases from the NZ Mint broadening their horizons by expanding coin sizes up to three ounces. In this case, it’s an addition to the more traditional (for them) one-ounce silver and quarter-ounce gold, rather than a solo release, although the bigger coin does have a different design, more of an expanded view in fact, than the smaller coins.

Rather than the usual choice of character as a subject, this issue features a location. The Shire, home of the Hobbits, is a core part of the Lord of the Rings story, but we’re not so sure if it makes a compelling coin subject. One for the hardcore fan, perhaps, but the base idea is solid enough, with the movies having some seriously impressive visual locations within them for future issues. We definitely prefer the smaller coin design over the three-ounce version, but like all things aesthetic, your mileage may vary.

The latest character coin in the mints Lord of the Rings range of proof coins, this is another with coloured highlights on the silver variant, so not quite analogous to the Classic Star Wars range, sadly, but close enough. The quarter-ounce gold version is free of colour, and has a slightly simplified background, as the mint sometimes does to keep clarity high on the smaller diameter of this format.

Gollum is depicted this time, actually a very well done pose that most will be familiar with. Coins like this from the NZ Mint are usually impeccably struck, and very well presented, so it’s of little surprise that they’ve been so successful in the genre. This seems to be no exception.

It wouldn’t be a TV/film coin round-up without the ubiquitous Chibi getting its nose in, and the first of the two issues this month is also the 14th in the DC Comics subset – the biggest of them all. Green Arrow has been the subject of a long-running TV series, so is pretty well known outside of hardcore comic fans. Chibi collectors will know the story here – a 2,000 mintage, and a $100 pricetag.

Marvel Mini-Heroes continues its 24-coin run through one of the most popular pantheons in history, with the launch of Spider-Man, the ninth of them. This is a beautifully done range of coins, with tons of appeal to the legions of Marvel fans, and it will no doubt build into a comprehensive look at the most popular of these characters.

Spider-Man comes encapsulated, in a themed blisterpack, and can be bought individually, or through an auto shipping subscription where the Crown Mint will ship you the latest release on a monthly basis ($99.95 each). You can buy a collector’s box for $29.95, and it holds 12 pieces.

It’s quite surprising that it’s taken thirteen issues before Yoda gets his own entrant in the Star Wars Chibi subset, but here it is. Very recognisable, and managing to avoid looking like Grogu, we can see this one selling out quickly. You really should check out our massive round-up of this popular series to see the huge variety on offer, including the previous twelve Star Wars issues, and those for the latest companion TV series, The Mandalorian, and The Book of Boba Fett.

Joining The Joker, Robin and Batman, Catwoman is the fourth Faces of Gotham coin. A traditional comic depiction of the character, rather than the movies, it actually looks pretty decent. One for the Batman fan, for sure, it’s also neatly presented.