The numismatic marketplace is a diverse landscape of collectibles and investment opportunities that offers both opportunity and enjoyment to those who venture into some of the less publicized areas.

At CoinLink we tend to focus on classic rarities, major rarities and coins that have both a historical and pedigreed back-story. We love to find unusual items to present to our readers along with “important coins” that stand out in numismatic history and give us a better insight into how and why our coinage was conceived, developed and collected.

However this is just one arena in which collectors pursue their interest in the hobby. Many are drawn to specialties such as Bust Half dollars or Seated coinage, some focus on classic commemoratives or rare date gold. And many concentrate on Modern coins and new mint issues including high grade bullion coins or one of the many commemorative coins produced each year by the US mint.

One area where scant attention has been paid is to the World Collector Coin market. These are generally Silver coins, based around a particular theme and produced by several national mints under the authority of small far away counties such as Tuvalu and The Cook Islands.

The Perth Mint has been a prolific producer of such coins covering Nature, Military History and Famous People to Maritime and Aviation themes.

All these coins are visually striking and most incorporate innovative manufacturing techniques to add Holograms, colorized backgrounds and even revolutionary new design concepts such as the ‘orbital’ coin where the coin rotates around a fixed center.

Mintages for these coins is almost always limited, often to as few as 5000 coins, and are generally Sold out within a very short time after they are introduced.

Cory Maita of Gainesville Coins remarked that they can’t seem to keep these coin in stock. ” The demand is amazing and the collector coins just fly out the door”

Gainesville Coins is a major seller of collector coins and because of their special relationship with many of the mints and suppliers, they often are the first company to have new issues in stock and ready to ship.

The New 2010 Warrior Series has been very incredibly popular. The coin’s reverse portrays a Roman legionary in colour. Tough, courageous and highly-disciplined infantry soldiers, professional legionaries formed the backbone of the Roman army, a formidable fighting force that conquered and controlled Rome’s vast Empire.

The legionary is dressed in a galea, a metal helmet with cheek guards, and a cuirass, body armour comprising overlapping iron plates. The legionary is also wearing an apron of leather strips featuring metal plates hanging from his belt, and caligae, leather sandals with iron hobnails.

This Four coin set will also include the Viking, Knight and Samurai. (more…)

Numismatists United for Political Action (NUPA) a grassroots organization with a mission to educate and inspire the coin collecting community to stand and be heard in Washington organized this week.

The effort follows discussions at the recent Board of Directors meeting of the Industry Council for Tangible Assets (ICTA). NUPA is already set up on Google groups and Facebook and invites anyone, especially coin dealers and collectors to join and get involved. There are no dues or fees for membership.

Three core issues right now for NUPA are: getting the U.S. Mint to produce 2010 Proof Silver Eagles, fighting for elimination of restrictive private commodity sales language in the Senate Financial Reform measure and passage of S.1769 the Coins in IRAs Bill. Nicholas Pyle who addressed the ICTA meeting on political action said, “The need for NUPA is clear, our community needs to step up and be heard.” “NUPA is here to fill a void since many of the organizations that serve to numismatic community have charters and tax status that limits their political activity to education and prevents direct lobbying to Members of Congress.” Our goal with NUPA is to complement these organizations activities and energize their memberships and the broader coin-collecting universe to be heard on important issues.

NUPA efforts will provide inspired coin enthusiasts with talking points on key issues for individuals to use in reaching out to their constituent representatives. The tools will be useful in emailing, writing and visiting Members of Congress. We will take a broad brush of “shotgun” approach for initial outreach efforts to all of congress and focus resources of time and visits to the key members on committees like Banking in the House and Senate as well as the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.

Pyle noted we are less than a day old and moving quickly on raising awareness for NUPA. We have a core group identified with interest in serving on a steering committee. Our next steps are putting issue talking points on the web and providing direction for grassroots efforts. If significant interest does arise we may want to consider a Washington “fly-in” and March on Congress in conjunction with the next major Baltimore coin show. (more…)

Certified by NGC is this recently discovered South Africa 6 Pence dated 1928. It is the only known example bearing this date.

The coin was first spotted in an English country auction where it was cataloged with an unusual notation: the coin’s date was not listed in the standard series reference. It was purchased by a dealer who had a strong suspicion about the its origin.

Although he had no doubt about the coin’s authenticity, he sent it first to South Africa, where a number of experts examined the coin, all declaring it genuine. The coin itself, as a unique discovery piece, created a sensation among collectors of South African coins, who marveled that this discovery took over 80 years to occur.

From South Africa, the coin was sent the coin to the United States to be certified and encapsulated by NGC.

The dies for South African coins of this era were manufactured in England and then sent to South Africa for use in coinage production. Mysteriously, six pence dies of this year were not shipped and no pieces dated 1928 were struck in South Africa. Other denominations of coins were produced in that year, however, and it is not certain why the six pence was omitted.

Numismatist believe that the coin was produced in England as a specimen piece.

It has shallow mirrored fields, a crisp strike, as well as squared rims, similar to all South African presentation coinage of this era. It is also struck on a .925 fine silver planchet, while coins struck for circulation in South Africa are only .800 fine. It has a deep amber patina and is remarkably well preserved, evidence that it resided in the possession of a collector since it was struck.