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For well over a century, the skilled individuals at Perth Mint in Australia have crafted high-quality products, including both collectible bullion coins and circulation coins. In recent decades, one of their outstanding collectible series has been the mint’s Wildlife Series, which celebrates the unique and fascinating creatures that inhabit the Land Down Under.
One of the standout coins in the series, the Silver Kookaburra, was first produced in 1990. These coins, which are 99.9% fine silver, stand apart as true works of art. Other coins in the series, which are on par with the Kookaburra in terms of beauty, are produced for a more limited time.
Many of the silver coins in the series share the 99.9% purity level, though the sizes of the coins vary. The Kookaburra coins, for instance, are minted in four different denominations and sizes, ranging from one troy ounce to one kilogram in weight and from 40 millimeters in diameter to more than 100. Some other coins in the Wildlife series weigh as little as one-tenth of an ounce.
The stunning diversity of this series makes it attractive to investors, since they can choose the coins that fit their budget and their personal preferences.
Perth Mint has used a variety of monarch portraits on its coinage over the years, with its bullion collections offered since the 1980s dominated by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The most common obverse portraits for Australian bullion coins from Perth Mint include the following:
Please note that not all series feature these portraits in the same order as monarch portraits are often introduced in stages. For example, the Lunar Series II program used the Ian Rank-Broadley design through its 2019 conclusion, while the Lunar Series III program is scheduled to continue with Jody Clark’s effigy of the Queen beyond 2023.
One of the newest collections from Perth Mint celebrates a region of Western Australia known as the “golden mile.” Western Australia has a rich gold mining history and the 2019 introduction of the Super Pit Series delivered images of the massive open pit gold mine in Western Australia. With the latest release in 2023, Perth Mint offered two gold coins in the Super Pit release and used gold sourced directly from the Super Pit for the production of the coins.
The Perth Mint offers an impressive variety of long-running silver bullion coin programs focused on native wildlife. The Silver Kookaburra, Silver Koala, and Silver Kangaroo have a track record stretching back as far as three decades for the Kookaburra and more than 10 years for the Koala and Kangaroo. There are, however, newer programs that have come online from Perth Mint in recent years that are worth of their own hype and attention.
One of the latest entries is the Australian Silver Wedge Tail Eagle coins. This series depicts the Wedge Tail Eagle on the reverse of the coins. The Wedge Tail Eagle is the largest predatory bird in Australia and can also be found in southern New Guinea, as well as parts of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Perth Mint teamed up with former US Mint Chief Engraver John Mercanti to create the designs of the wedge tail eagle on these coins. Mr. Mercanti is the same man who designed the American heraldic eagle on the reverse of the American Silver Eagle and the image of the Statue of Liberty from the American Platinum Eagle, two of the United States Mint’s most important coin releases each year.
The Australian Silver Wedge Tail Eagle program launched in 2014. The collection features designs that, like other Perth Mint bullion, offers new designs. However, the program did not start with new designs each year. Unique design dates include the following:
Perth Mint’s focus on wildlife-themed annual releases continued in 2018 with the debut of a brand-new silver bullion collection. The Australian Silver Emu coin made its debut in 2018 with a low mintage cap of just 30,000 coins. Each one features 1 Troy oz of .9999 pure silver, in keeping with all other major silver bullion issues, and is set to depict the emu in a different relief on the reverse side each year.
The emu is the second-largest living bird in the world by height behind the ostrich, and it is endemic to Australia. The bird is the only extant member of the Dromaius genus and used to include three subspecies in the region: Tasmanian emu, Kangaroo Island emu, and King Island emu. The latter three subspecies all became extinct shortly after European settlement of Australian in 1788.
The Australian Emu Series has followed the use of new reverse designs each year. Starting with its 2018 debut and continuing today, Perth Mint uses a new depiction of the Emu on the reverse with each release.
With the upcoming release of a 25th James Bond film in the theatrical franchise, the Perth Mint and other minting facilities around the world have been celebrating the fictional British spy. Introduced in 1953 by Ian Fleming, Bond originally featured in fictional novels by Fleming and two short-story collections. Those original novels were adapted for the big screen starting in 1962 with the legendary Sir Sean Connery in the leading role as James Bond. Between 1962 and 2020, 24 feature films have hit the big screen and the world continues to await the release of the 25th film, No Time To Die.
In anticipation of this release, the Perth Mint has issued two different types of silver bullion for investors and collectors. The first is a traditional form of silver, 1 oz silver coins available with two different designs as Brilliant Uncirculated silver coins and colorized silver coins. The other is a unique silver foil. A silver foil is a thin, pressed silver product with full-color graphics and photo-realistic images present. The James Bond Movie Poster Series features 5 Gram silver foils for each of the last five Bond feature films with Daniel Craig in the role of James Bond. These include:
Introduced in 2017 to coincide with upcoming feature films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Marvel Series of 1 oz silver BU coins from the Perth Mint is an exciting collection that includes a total of nine distinctive designs through 2021. Each coin has an effigy of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse and is issued with 1 Troy oz of .9999 pure silver on behalf of Tuvalu. The designs include the following releases:
In addition to the bullion release with limited mintages per design, the Perth Mint also offers these coins with a limited release of 1,000 silver coins in colorized presentation cards. The cards have the same image of the representative character on the reverse that is found on the reverse of the coin. The main difference is the colorization of the design on the card.
A beautiful series honoring mothers and babies in the wild, the Next Generation Series features wildlife species from the Australian wilderness on 2 oz silver blanks. The series is unique in its use of extremely thick blanks. Rather than turning to larger 2 oz silver blanks with a greater diameter to spread out the greater volume of silver, the Perth Mint uses a blank with the diameter of a 1 oz silver blank, but twice the thickness to create a chunky, heavy item.
Known as the Next Generation Series, the coins have an obverse design with an effigy of Queen Elizabeth II in right-profile relief. The 2018 debut featured Ian Rank-Broadley’s fifth-generation Australian design, with the coins as of 2019 offering the latest sixth-generation effigy from Jody Clark. The new design includes the Queen’s shoulders in the portrait with the George IV State Diadem Crown on her head. The reverse designs include:
Each one of the coins has 2 Troy oz of .9999 pure silver and comes with distinctive radial lines in the background field on both sides of the coin. As of the 2019 release, the coins in the Next Generation Series are also available in 10 Troy oz silver. The coins are in Brilliant Uncirculated condition with a maximum mintage of 75,000 coins per design in the 2 oz weight.
If you’d like to add silver bullion from these other Perth Mint series to your portfolio, don’t hesitate to contact JM Bullion customer service. You can call us on the phone at 800-276-6508, chat with us live online, or simply send us an email.
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