Great Video on American Silver Eagles

Just wanted to share this great video on American Silver Eagles. The guy does a great and very professional job talking about the history, mintage and rarities of the coin. I wish there were videos like this for other bullion coins.

The Five Lowest Mintage Canadain Silver Maple Leaf Coins

You may notice that some of the silver maple leaf coins fetch a higher price than others. Some people think that the older ones are the more valuable ones, but actually it has more to do with the mintage. The fewer coins that were produced, the rarer the coin and therefore the more people will pay for it. So what are the rarest coins? I have compiled a list of the five rarest regular issue and the five rarest privy mark coins. Expect to pay a little (or alot for the privy mark coins!) for these. Keep in mind, I compiled this list with the currently known mintage numbers so more recent coins are not included.

Regular Issue (including all up to 2007):

1. 1997 (100970)
2. 1996 (250445)
3. 1995 (326224)
4. 1992 (343800)
5. 2001 (398563)

Privy Mark (including all up to 2007):

1. 2005 Liberation of the Netherlands (3500)
2. 2004 Western Zodiac - all 12 coins (5000)
3. 2005 Victory in Europe (V.E.) Day (6998)
4. 2005 Victory in Japan (V.J.) Day (6998)
5. 2007 Year of the Pig (8000)

2009 Brandenburg Gate Privy Silver Maple Leaf

Here is the other 2009 privy SML that I got recently. This one, the Brandenburg Gate privy, is to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The gate is a well known symbol of Germany, which makes it a perfect privy mark for a coin commemorating the reunification of Berlin. Also, this coin hand a mintage of only 50000 and was only released in Germany. That makes two Europe only privy releases this year, the Brandenburg Gate and London Tower Bridge, so they aren't the easiest coins to get ahold of since there are usually several middlemen involved in the buying process. For those of you keeping score, that leave only the Ox privy and regular 2009 issue silver maple leaf for me to have all of the 2009s, since I have the Vancouver Olympics and London Tower Bridge privy already.

2009 London Tower Bridge Privy Mark Silver Maple Leaf

Another privy mark silver maple leaf for the collection! This one is the 2009 London Tower Bridge Privy SML, and was minted to commemorate the 115th anniversary of this famous landmark. This was both a low mintage and a Europe-only release, which makes it a nice coin to have in my collection. Construction on this bridge started in 1886 and finished in 1894, and it is still used by over 40000 people ever day! This is the first of the four 2009 silver maple leafs to enter my collection (along with the standard 2009, Ox and Brandenburg Gate) but certainly will not be my last (I actually have another, but will wait until tomorrow to write it up :)).

Yearly Silver Maple Leaf

I think we will all agree that the yearly regular release of the silver maple leaf is the same coin each year, just with a different date (and occasionally an updated picture of the Queen!). Other than the 1999-2000 Fireworks and 2000 Fireworks, of course, which all have a privy mark on them.

2010 Vancouver Olympics - Three Coin Set

Here are pictures of my Vancouver 2010 Olympics Silver Maple Leaf coins together. Enjoy!

Front:

Back:

Canadian Mint Fall 2009 Catalog

The Royal Canadian Mint released their Fall 2009 Catalog today. This year, however, instead of calling it Fall they called it the Festive 09 Catalog. Giving it a quick look there were only about eight new items I could find, so there wasn't too much to get excited about. Here are the new items they released:

Fine Silver

• $20 Blue Crystal Snowflake - .9999 silver with inlaid crystals (31.39 grams). 15000 mintage. A snowflake with colored crystals. Issue Price - $94.95 CAD.
• $20 Pink Crystal Snowflake - .9999 silver with inlaid crystals (31.39 grams). 15000 mintage. Same as above, but with different colored crystals. Issue Price - $94.95 CAD.
• $4 Hanging the Stockings - .9999 silver (15.87 grams). 15000 mintage. An image of children hanging stockings in front of their Christmas Tree. Issue Price - $42.95 CAD.
• $4 Dromaeosaurus - .9999 silver (15.87 grams). 20000 mintage. This is the fourth and final coin in the dinosaur collection. Issue Price - $42.95 CAD.
• $3 Return of the Tyee - .9999 silver (7.96 grams) plated with pink and yellow gold. 15000 mintage. Actually a very nice looking coin, but very expensive I find. Issue Price - $54.95 CAD.

Sterling Silver

• $15 Queen Elizabeth II - 30.0 grams. 10000 mintage. Queen Elizabeth on both the front and the back. Issue Price - Coming Soon.

Gold

• $150 Lunar Year of the Tiger - .75 gold and .25 silver (11.84 grams). 4888 mintage. 11th coin in the zodiac series. Issue Price - 638.88 CAD.

Other

• 50 cent Holiday Toy Train - Made of brass and steel. Unlimited mintage. Colored image of a toy train. Issue Price - $25.95 CAD.

Personally, the only ones I would be interested in would be the gold or silver coins. Even then, I find the coins far too expensive. For example, with the gold coin you are getting about $290 worth of gold, so you are paying almost $350 extra for the coin. With that much of a markup, I would need to really like the design (but I don't like it that much!). Have any of you bought, or are thinking to buy, any of these?