Freedom of information request - Royal mint

[FoolzGold]

Incidentally, I'd love to see the equivalent figures for the UK lunar series. My prediction would be that the sheep sold okay with people hoping it might improve with the next coin but once the pot-bellied monkey design was released people stayed away in droves and probably didn't come back. Saying that, the 2018 mutt coin is so daft it's almost tempting to buy one...

[Mike]

On 03/05/2018 at 12:10, FoolzGold said:

Incidentally, I'd love to see the equivalent figures for the UK lunar series. My prediction would be that the sheep sold okay with people hoping it might improve with the next coin but once the pot-bellied monkey design was released people stayed away in droves and probably didn't come back. Saying that, the 2018 mutt coin is so daft it's almost tempting to buy one...

Hi All - Just joined this site, very interesting.  Please see below from Royal Mint dated August 2017, which only relates to 1oz coins:

 

Dear *****

 

As a bullion division we took the decision not to publish mintages as 
bullion is traditionally an investment-only product. Other mints have 
taken a different approach for their own reasons. A numismatic coin is 
usually a fixed mintage product.

 

The only exception is  the Lunar bullion coin, where we follow all other 
mints with a declared mintage.

 

In answer to your questions please note;

 

1.       We have not actually calculated the mintages of the 1oz gold 
Britannia since 1987. We will do this during the autumn and would suggest 
you write back later in the year. The delay is due to records being in 
different places.

 

2.       1oz gold Lunar. We only launched the Lunar bullion series 4 years 
ago, so these records

 

-          Horse            14,935 struck

-          Sheep           6778 struck

-          Monkey       8866 struck

-          Rooster        5776 struck

 

3.       1oz Queens Beasts (to date)

-          Lion                22,366 struck

-          Griffin           12,656 struck

-          Dragon         10,012 struck

[Alex74]

Good Evening together,

sorry to warm up this older thread, but i have not found any other new Information about the mintage of the Gold Bullion 1/4 oz. QB Coins than in this thread. Does anyone have actual information about the real mintage-numbers?

I want to make up my decision on which of the coins i will buy taking the individual premium in Germany into account.

Thanks for all replies!

Best regards

Alex

[Pampfan]

These were/are the real numbers I obtained from the mint.

These coins are not rare and should be bought for as close to spot as possible - in the USA - pinehurst coins has them all for the best prices.

good luck

pamp

[FoolzGold]

These were the figures for 1/4oz gold bullion QB sales from the FOI results previously published on this forum...

I have an FOI currently in progress with the RM so hopefully should have a smallupdate soon.

[Mike]

22 hours ago, Pampfan said:

These were/are the real numbers I obtained from the mint.

These coins are not rare and should be bought for as close to spot as possible - in the USA - pinehurst coins has them all for the best prices.

good luck

pamp

If they are sent form USA to UK - will import VAT be added or as they are legal tender, is this avoided?

[Mike]

I have the 1oz QBs, am considering getting the 1/4 oz too.  However, nowhere in the UK is doing the lion and griffin on a par with Pinehurst coins and they don’t ship to UK...

[mr-dead]

9 minutes ago, Mike said:

If they are sent form USA to UK - will import VAT be added or as they are legal tender, is this avoided?

No taxes due on gold.

I had 1kg gold bars shipped from Canada with everything declare and not charged a penny

[Mike]

Thanks @mr-dead Just read the small print and Pinehurst won’t ship to UK, no exceptions!

[Oldun]

On 03/06/2017 at 16:44, Numistacker said:

Great information. Probably worth sending them the same request each quarter )

Somewhere in the run of 10 there will be some low mintage gems as people start to tire.

Is it time ?

[FoolzGold]

I tried and they rejected my request on the basis that it would harm their commercial interested (BS) and be harmful for clients/collectors as it would potentially push up dealer prices on low selling items (also BS as people would still be able to buy them direct from the RM while in production and once the coin is out of production it's of no concern to the RM what happens to prices).

I did plan to write back and argue the case but I just didn't have the energy for it. Maybe someone else will have more luck.

[shortstack68]

On 03/05/2018 at 13:04, FoolzGold said:

Given that the lion/griffin/dragon sales are effectively complete (for 1oz gold and 2oz silver) at the time of publication we can draw some tentative conclusions on the progress of series so far.

1oz gold bullion: The dragon has outsold the griffin by almost 10%. Lion population is 72.6% higher than the lowest in the series so far.

2oz silver bullion: The dragon has outsold the griffin by 6.2%. Lion population is 40.9% higher than the lowest in the series so far.

Tentative conclusions:

First in series populations are enormous. In theory these should never be the blocking point for collectors looking to complete a set, more the readily-available gateway drug that can draw people in.

The dragon was a beautiful design but the griffin was almost as nice (imho) so I suspect we can attribute most of the 6 to 10% higher sales of these coins to the appeal of dragon designs to Chinese buyers. If that's the case then this 6 to 10% sales boost is what's behind the mints churning out dragon-based designs by the bucket load.

We can also look at this in another way, by popularity, Lion, Dragon, Griffin, Unicorn then bull so the rise in the Griffin price makes no sense to me at all

[jultorsk]

On 28/11/2018 at 19:38, FoolzGold said:

I tried and they rejected my request on the basis that it would harm their commercial interested (BS) and be harmful for clients/collectors as it would potentially push up dealer prices on low selling items (also BS as people would still be able to buy them direct from the RM while in production and once the coin is out of production it's of no concern to the RM what happens to prices).

I did plan to write back and argue the case but I just didn't have the energy for it. Maybe someone else will have more luck.

Seems that's their story and they're sticking to it. Here's verbatim from another FOI answer by the Royal Mint: "Declaring production figures on these [bullion] coins has the potential to impact sales and falsely inflate the prices in the bullion market. For example, if the production figure is considered to be low then the product could be viewed as a rare/collectible item and in these cases many retailers increase their prices. This causes confusion as to the distinction between core bullion products and commemorative/collectible items. There is then the clear potential to negatively impact the end customer as they could end up paying more for a bullion product than its intrinsic value."

I feel so blessed that RM, purely out of the kindness of heart I'm sure, so looks after me to prevent any foolish confusion and safeguards me from paying more than the fundamental value for their coins. 😁 🙏 

[Murph]

It’s a local shop for local people and only they get the local figures.

RM would have been as well just saying something along those lines for all the sense they made.

[kimchi]

9 minutes ago, Murph said:

It’s a local shop for local people and only they get the local figures.

RM would have been as well just saying something along those lines for all the sense they made.

It's a private company, FOIs don't apply, imo they only play along to some extent to hide that.

[scoremore]

@Pampfan

Hi all! New to this Forum. Been checking back here periodically looking for FOI Queen's Beast Mintage numbers. I can't find a recent update however....So I finally got of my arse and signed up.

I believe it was Pampfan that came through with these numbers originally. Interested in the update because I think there is a couple more that have ceased being minted.

Thanks in advance! 🖕

[Pampfan]

Well it is over a year again since I was able to get some mintage numbers. Does anyone still want to know what the mintages to date are. I have long since stoped collecting them since I couldn’t keep up with it.

ill see if my contact is still good. 

Likes on this post will be a yes!

[Kman]

28 minutes ago, Pampfan said:

Well it is over a year again since I was able to get some mintage numbers. Does anyone still want to know what the mintages to date are. I have long since stoped collecting them since I couldn’t keep up with it.

ill see if my contact is still good. 

Likes on this post will be a yes!

Yes please 

[scoremore]

@pampfan

Pictures for inspiration! 🖕🖕

[scoremore]

I ordered up 10oz Black Bulls last week to keep up with my full 2oz 10oz collection...Just waiting on the new release but I may go back an order some of the ones I own depending on mintage and if they are still available for a fair price!  😉

[Pampfan]

All, I just sent the request to my contact at the mint. I will let everyone know when I receive a response.

I am curious to see the Bullion figures for the later date 2oz Bullion coins. 

Pamp

 

[scoremore]

Thank you very much Pampfan! Love this series! I think most out there still think these are unlimited and do not realize they are "unlimited" only for a certain time for minting and then they are done. Most do not even know there are figures available.

[Pipers]

 

On 28/11/2018 at 09:38, FoolzGold said:

I tried and they rejected my request on the basis that it would harm their commercial interested (BS) and be harmful for clients/collectors as it would potentially push up dealer prices on low selling items (also BS as people would still be able to buy them direct from the RM while in production and once the coin is out of production it's of no concern to the RM what happens to prices).

I did plan to write back and argue the case but I just didn't have the energy for it. Maybe someone else will have more luck.

Have you asked  a USA forum member to ship one for you as a gift?  you obviously would send the monies first.    

[FoolzGold]

19 hours ago, Pampfan said:

All, I just sent the request to my contact at the mint. I will let everyone know when I receive a response.

I am curious to see the Bullion figures for the later date 2oz Bullion coins. 

Pamp

 

Good luck! As noted in previous posts other people's requests in the past year have been met with a standard reply that releasing sales figures would harm their commercial interests, and somehow the interests of collectors.

[scoremore]

@FoolzGold

That is why I asked @Pampfan

Maybe you missed this one: