The Perth Mint unveiled its 2017 Lunar bullion coins
- Published: Sep 16, 2016, 8 AM
The Perth Mint has unveiled designs of its 2017 Lunar bullion coin program.
The facility in Western Australia on Sept. 12 began sales of seven silver bullion coins and eight gold bullion coins, all marking 2017 as the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese Zodiac calendar.
The zodiac’s mythology characterizes people born in the Year of the Rooster as hardworking, loyal, honest and sociable.
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Previous years of the Rooster have fallen in 1921, 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993 and 2005.
Each coin’s reverse features a rooster, hen and three chicks standing among flowers and bamboo foliage.
The design is produced on .9999 fine silver coins ranging from half-ounce to 10 kilograms in size, and on .9999 fine gold coins as small as one-20th of an ounce and as large as 1 kilogram.
As with recent years, most of the coins do not have a mintage limit. Production of the coins with no limit will continue until the end of 2017, at which time sales are closed and the Perth Mint will announce the mintage.
Exceptions are the 1-ounce sizes in both silver and gold, and the 10-kilogram silver coin.
The 1-ounce sizes have regularly sold out their 30,000 mintage in gold and 300,000 mintage in silver. However, the maximum mintage of the 10-kilogram silver coin, at 100, is a reduction from recent years.
The rest of the Perth Mint’s popular precious metal programs will unfold between now and January 2017, as the Mint allocates capacity.
The Australian Lunar series will be followed by the gold Kangaroo and silver Kookaburra in October. The silver Kangaroo hops onto the scene in November, and the silver Koala and platinum Platypus are scheduled to be released in January.
Though many bullion-issuing mints do not sell directly to the public, the Perth Mint does offer direct sales of bullion coins to residents of a limited number of countries, including Australia (but not the United States of America).
Major U.S. bullion distributors in the United States offer the Perth Mint’s suite of bullion coins.
According to the Perth Mint, its bullion coin programs represent 94 percent of its annual sales — it’s unclear whether that is a measure of dollars or mintage numbers, but bullion is clearly important to the Perth Mint’s bottom line.
For more information, visit the Perth Mint’s dedicated bullion website.
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