Saltwater Crocodile suffers sudden death: 12 year Silver Coin Series has been terminated after 4 editions

[coinosseur]

Bad news for friends of Australian silver coins: After the sudden termination of the popular "Stockhorse" series of the Perth Mint, the second Australian coin producer scraps a popular series before the planned date: the "Saltwater Crocodile" silver coins will not appear as planned in 2017. Originally the series was supposed to appear for twelve years with one edition per year.

The saltwater crocodile series was a joint project of a German precious metal dealer with the Royal Australian Mint and the Australia Zoo. In 2013, the crocodile "Bindi" was seen on the coins, in 2014 an animal named "Graham" was depicted. The co-operation with the zoo will, however, be continued after the end of the Saltwater Crocodile series: In the year 2017, a coin with the portrait of "Archie the Alpine Dingo", another inhabitant of the zoo, was introduced.

But the future of the Zoo series is unclear. Just a few days ago, a document was published by the Australian government describing the embossing program for 2018 in detail. There are no new collector's coins listed here, instead of 2018 a new 1.5 ounce silver coin will be launched: The "Australian Freshwater Crocodile".

[sovereignsteve]

No surprises, neither of those series were really popular

[coinosseur]

Really not? I think that there were many fans in Germany ... but maybe not enough?

[PolarPanda]

1 minute ago, coinosseur said:

Really not? I think that there were many fans in Germany ... but maybe not enough?

I'm curious to see the new Australian Freshwater Crocodile. Can be an interesting one... 

[sovereignsteve]

44 minutes ago, coinosseur said:

Really not? I think that there were many fans in Germany ... but maybe not enough?

Probably not. It's been easy to get all the stock horse issues at low prices and I've not seen anyone rushing to buy the named crocs.

The stock horse has been the real surprise; pretty good designs and lowish mintage (9k + 1k). The carded version at 1k has been a particular disappointment; even though they've been hyped up and offered at ramped prices, they've been relatively easy to obtain at reasonable cost.

Like them myself.

[SilverShaker]

I'm not surprised by this in the slightest. I picked up a 2013 saltwater crocodile last week and I wasn't too enamored by it. The upside of this is perhaps the coins will become more collectable over time? Maybe I'll hang onto it for a while after all ?. 

Shame about the stock horse series though... The designs are absolutely beautiful and lowish mintages as sovereignsteve mentioned. 

[fehk2001]

2 hours ago, sovereignsteve said:

Probably not. It's been easy to get all the stock horse issues at low prices and I've not seen anyone rushing to buy the named crocs.

The stock horse has been the real surprise; pretty good designs and lowish mintage (9k + 1k). The carded version at 1k has been a particular disappointment; even though they've been hyped up and offered at ramped prices, they've been relatively easy to obtain at reasonable cost.

Like them myself.

I think that's due to the decline of sales across the precious metal sector hence they have to cut some of the series , for example , Chinese coins from official actual sales and stats figure 

from  total market cap 734 billion 2016, 2017 market cap 687.83total 1930 coins , drop 932 ( 50.88% ) , hold 481 , 24.92 % ,   risen 24.2% 

total market cap 2016 734.21 billion and 2017 687.83 billion 

 

[Pete]

I always thought the Stock Horse was a winner especially seeing the high prices for the 2013 coin these days.
Unfortunately EMK's website is down at present so cannot list the current prices.
I did spot the 2014 in the USA for $62 and 2 European sellers offering the 2017 for just under €35 so quite a decent premium for a bullion coin.
Now that the series has prematurely ended it means I will not have to continue adding every year - 
The 10% issued in Australia are blister packed on postcards and are horrendously overpriced for a piece of printed cardboard in my opinion.
So am I missing something w.r.t. the comments about "disappointment" ?

[sovereignsteve]

1 hour ago, Pete said:

So am I missing something w.r.t. the comments about "disappointment" ?

As you say, they were overpriced on issue but it was possible to obtain them a lot cheaper soon after. For an issue number of 1k the expected increase in price hasn't materialised so obviously not enough people regard them highly enough to collect. Carded Aussie silver is generally in demand cf the bu carded roos, some of which are quite rare. I don't know the exact figures in comparison to the stock horse's 1k. I'm sure you can tell me.

[Pete]

1 hour ago, sovereignsteve said:

Carded Aussie silver is generally in demand cf the bu carded roos, some of which are quite rare. I don't know the exact figures in comparison to the stock horse's 1k. I'm sure you can tell me.

Carded Roos from the RAM years 2008 and 2009 can be priced circa 3 x the coin itself and not commonly seen for sale.
There was no official 2007 RAM card but there are alternatives printed by 3rd parties for completeness that are relatively eye-watering in price.

[Pete]

3 hours ago, Pete said:

I always thought the Stock Horse was a winner especially seeing the high prices for the 2013 coin these days.
Unfortunately EMK's website is down at present so cannot list the current prices.
I did spot the 2014 in the USA for $62 and 2 European sellers offering the 2017 for just under €35 so quite a decent premium for a bullion coin.

EMK site back up -

Stock horse bullion coin - annual mintage 9,000
2013  €125
2014  €79.50
2015  €59
2016  €45
2017  €34.95