The Half Ounce Lunar Dragons Are Selling Faaaaast

[KYnyts]

Wait, wait...I am confused. Gainesville had on their site that the 1/2 oz. were limited to 500,000. Okay, I have to read some of the earlier posts in this thread....

[ZyPhReX]

(04-28-2012 07:54 AM)Mojofabulous Wrote:  So, it recently came to my attention that i was misled by gainesvillecoins in to thinking the mintage of the 1/2 oz dragons was set at 500,000. That meant i, in turn, was misleading people here in to believing the mintage was 500,000. I have since apologized for that. At first i saw this as a negative, but not as a big enough negative to make me regret buying as many of these as i could. However, i now see it as a big positive for us. i did some reading and put on my thinking cap and i have come to the conclusion that this is actually an extremely good turn of events. From what i've read only the 1 oz and 1 kg coins can be minted past the first year until the series closes. All the rest stop production at the end of the year. The 1kg is unlimited, so it could be produced all the way to the end of series II and the 1 oz is already maxed, so no more of those can be made. Ya, technically that means there could be tons of 1/2 oz dragons made this year, but is that realistic? Not based on what i've seen so far. At the arguably most popular dealers in the united states(apmex, gainesvillecoins, providentmetals) they have sold maybe 10,000 coins combined so far with another 3,000 in inventory. The perth mint lists the total sales for each year. Below are the mintages for the last three years of available data for the 1/2 oz silver lunar coins.

The 2008 1/2 oz mouse sold 17114
The 2009 1/2 oz Ox sold 17674
The 2010 1/2 oz tiger sold 50,035

You can check these numbers for yourself by going to the below link. Also note that all the 1/2 oz coins are listed as unlimited but actually sold far far fewer than their 1 oz counterparts.
http://www.perthmint.com.au//documents/T...-_2010.pdf


Lets assume the 1/2 oz dragon is five times as popular as the tiger. That is still only a mintage of 250,000. Unlimited mintage may be seen as a detractor right now because of uncertainty, but history tells us not to be worried and actually that we should be encouraged, because it means we are looking at, PROBABLY, a lot fewer than 500,000 of these coins.

The only thing i am not 100% positive of is if the 1/2 oz really cant be minted past the year of it's issue. Until i get a perth mint rep to tell me that in writing, i can't promise it is accurate.

Thanks for the info. Was wondering about those numbers myself.

In retrospect, at first I was semi-bummed out about the mintage not being capped. But not so much anymore. It will be interesting to see where the final numbers for these coins lie. If the numbers for the 1/2 oz dragon end up anywhere within the 250,000 - 500,000 mintage range it'll be great. Either way no regrets.

Another aspect to consider is that we're pretty much at the 'bottom' - per se - of this price range. Could we go lower? Sure. Actually hope we do, but even if we do, it shouldn't be for too long. One could definitely see less and less 'interest' as price rises over the course of the year for this coin if people are purchasing for the sake of stacking and if for whatever reason the premium expands. We'll see though! No worries.

[ZyPhReX]

(04-28-2012 11:14 AM)KYnyts Wrote:  Wait, wait...I am confused. Gainesville had on their site that the 1/2 oz. were limited to 500,000. Okay, I have to read some of the earlier posts in this thread....

Am confused too! The numbers might be wrong unfortunately.

Mojo is still attempting to verify this information I think.

More information is here:

http://www.brotherjohnf.com/forum/Thread...atic-plays

[Mojofabulous]

Yes, please check my last few posts in that thread. That thread got a little testy/offensive and a lot of people didn't follow it. But it did yield fruit. That is part of why i resurrected this thread with my previous post :-)

[Mojofabulous]

I got a link from the 2012 perth mint bullion brochure which states clearly that the 1/2oz silver lunar coin will stop production at the end of 2012. Case closed!

http://www.perthmintbullion.com/bullion-...e-2012.pdf

:No mintage limit applies to 1 kilo, 10oz, 5oz, 2oz and 1/2oz coins. Except
for the 1 kilo release, production of these coins will close at the end of
2012 and The Perth Mint will declare each coin's official mintage.
Production of 1 kilo coins will cease at the end of the series.
A maximum of 500 10 kilo coins will be produced on a mint-to-order
basis. However, production will close at the end of 2012, when the coin's
actual mintage will be declared.
The Perth Mint will produce up to 300,000 1oz coins. Production will
cease when the mintage is fully sold or at the end of the series, whichever
comes first.:"

[Honey]

Mojo,

Thanks for following up on this. Knowing what we know now... I wish I would have picked up some more...

I can't wait to see what the ultimate mintage of this will turn out to be but would guess no where near 500,000.

[SilverTemplePilot]

I think that is one of the misconceptions - that if a coin doesn't have a set mintage / 'unlimited mintage' there will be a lot of them made, but that just isn't the case. I have a feeling there won't many of these little guys made.

[Mojofabulous]

The year of the rabbit mintages were just released by the perth mint. I'm a little shocked, I didn't expect so many 1/2 oz rabbits to be produced. I guess the spike in silver price created greater demand for the smaller coins?? Who knows. That does mean at minimum we should expect to see probably 200k 1/2 oz dragons...maybe 300k? 400k?

Silver Rabbits
10kg - 173
1kg - TBD
10oz - 12,563
5oz - 8,030
2oz - 99,494
1oz - 300,000
1/2oz - 124,488

http://www.perthmint.com.au//documents/T...urrent.pdf

Gold Rabbit
10kg - NIL
1kg - 153
10oz - 641
2oz - 4,209
1oz - 30,000
1/2oz - 8,885
1/4oz - 11,101
1/10oz - 21,901
1/20oz - 22,412

[Mojofabulous]

apparently the 5oz and 10oz rabbits were only minted part of the year, which is part of why the 1/2 oz mintage is so much higher.

[TheGK]

(05-01-2012 09:56 PM)Mojofabulous Wrote:  The year of the rabbit mintages were just released by the perth mint. I'm a little shocked, I didn't expect so many 1/2 oz rabbits to be produced. I guess the spike in silver price created greater demand for the smaller coins?? Who knows. That does mean at minimum we should expect to see probably 200k 1/2 oz dragons...maybe 300k? 400k?

Silver Rabbits
10kg - 173
1kg - TBD
10oz - 12,563
5oz - 8,030
2oz - 99,494
1oz - 300,000
1/2oz - 124,488

http://www.perthmint.com.au//documents/T...urrent.pdf

Gold Rabbit
10kg - NIL
1kg - 153
10oz - 641
2oz - 4,209
1oz - 30,000
1/2oz - 8,885
1/4oz - 11,101
1/10oz - 21,901
1/20oz - 22,412

That's great info. Impossible to say what the mintage will end up at, but my guess is around 1 million for the Silver Dragon 1/2 oz. Lets face it, dragons are much more interesing than rabbits. Plus, more and more people are waking up and coming to our side.

Anyway, getting GainesVille to remove the false claim about limited mintage about the 1/2 oz dragons will actually help to keep mintage lower (slightly). But it's still misleading, since a BIG colourized (!) headline says "Limited Mintage" and then says in small text that it applies to the 1 oz
http://www.gainesvillecoins.com/products...-coin.aspx

Nice work

[TheGK]

This is the quote I was referring to:

GainesVille Wrote:Limited Mintage

The mintage for the one-ounce 2012 Year of the Dragon silver bullion coin is limited to 300,000.

Investors and collectors should be aware that the mintage for the 10 kilo, 1 kilo, 10 oz, 5 oz, and 2 oz and 1/2 oz 2012 dragon silver coin has an unlimited mintage.

They write "one-ounce" in stead of 1 oz, so it's easy to overlook. I for instance thought they were talking about the 1/2 oz when I read it the first time and I was looking for the mistake!

[Mojofabulous]

Thanks. I personally dont see us getting anywhere close to 1million half ounce dragons but i have been wrong before.

[Honey]

Over the last year or two.. have the 1/2 oz become a lot more popular? It seems to me that it has.

In any event, I would guess (total guess) that the 1/2 oz Dragon will end u somewhere around 300,000 in mintage.... That is my guess..

[silversaver]

My coins arrived two days ago. When I ordered the coins I wasn't to crazy about the design. After I received my coins I was very surprised. The pictures do not do this coin justice. When you hold the real coin and see all the detail you will then appreciate the design and quality . One word of caution, if you hold the coin next to your desk lamp when the light reflects off of the dragon you will wish for a pair of sunglasses.