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Modern Numismatics
Louis Golino has been a collector of American and world coins since childhood and has written about coins since 2009. He writes about modern coins and other numismatic issues for Coin World. He is a founding member of the Modern Coin Forum.
Libertad Update
As a result, mintages for the silver and gold coins, which
are typically available by about this time, are not yet available.
Pat Stovall of Lois and Don Bailey Numismatic Services, one
of the direct distributors of coins from Mexico, said: “I suspect they will be
continuing to supply and ship coins to the bank [the Banco de Mexico, which distributes
the mints coins] until or before they reach their deadline of 12/31/16.”
The silver kilo proof-like Libertad is expected to be
available soon. Those coins usually have
mintages in the hundreds and previous issues are very hard to obtain. Choice Bullion is currently taking pre-orders
for this issue at $895.00.
I also have some exciting and exclusive information about
the 2017 silver kilo coin. The Banco de
Mexico is considering issuing the first-ever high relief kilo next year, which
would be a huge hit, but at this point it remains unclear whether that coin has
been authorized.
The mint has considered producing high relief Libertad proof
coins in the past, but the sizes smaller than one kilo do not provide enough
thickness to strike them in high relief.
Past proof-like kilos do have higher relief than smaller
Libertads, so a kilo with even higher (perhaps ultra high relief) would be
amazing.
There is also a regular uncirculated kilo coin that sells
closer to its melt value, and the 2016 coin is already available.
As for the gold coins, both the uncirculated and proof
versions were delayed and are just being released now.
The proofs are often only released in 5-coin boxed sets with
a mintage of around 500, and buyers of individual coins often have to obtain
them from sellers wiling to break up some of their sets.
But for 2016 the mint is issuing 1600 individual coins of
each size (1 ounce, ½ ounce, ¼ ounce, 1/10th ounce, and 1/20th
ounce) plus 500 for the sets for a total mintage of 2,100 coins.
Though higher than recent years’ mintages, they are still
very low numbers for modern gold proof coins, especially if you consider that
they are sold at lower premiums overs their spot value than American Gold
Eagles, let alone more pricey world proof coins. And gold Libertads have a good track record
of increasing in value.
The BU gold coins have no announced mintages, and that
information will likely be released along with the mintages for all the silver
issues sometime early in 2017.
The BU gold pieces are also typically very low mintage coins
that do well in the aftermarket with some coins in the low hundreds.
When it comes to getting more bang for your bucks, it is
hard to beat the combination of low initial premiums and much higher premiums
down the road that gold Libertads provide.
That is if you can buy them before they disappear.