2012 1 oz Silver Canadian Cougar (Wildlife Series)

The wolf coin has a lower mintage of 1,000,000. Probably a good one to have for the future?

 

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All of the wildlife series coins have, or will have, a mintage of 1,000,000.

 

my order from apmex is shipping on the 8th they said with my pandas and Australian Year of the Rabbit Coins
can't wait to receive

 

Milk Spots?

I just received my Cougars from Provident Metals. Both of them had milk spots under a lighted loupe (1 was really large.) I had the same thing with the Timber Wolves, also from Provident Metals. I didn't have any on the Grizzlies, which I purchased from a dealer on ebay. Did anybody else who purchased these have the same issue?

I know Maple Leafs have a reputation of being spotted. Also, in the past, I have had them on Mexican Libertads and Somalian Elephants. I'm trying to decide whether, in the future to keep purchasing from Provident or to look elsewhere, unless it's just something inherent with quality control at the Canadian Mint.

In terms of the Cougars themselves, they look a little better in person than in the illustration, but still not all that great.

My order of preference is still the Timber Wolf far and away, the Grizzly a distant second and the Cougar a distant tenth.........oh; I mean third.

 

I've had milkspots on about 1/3 of all the maples I've ever bought, regardless of source. Multiple local sources, provident, mintproducts.com, apmex, doesn't seem to matter.

 

New Cougars - Nice!

I have rec'd my 2 Cougars I ordered from Gainesville. They have no real issues at all, and I think the cougar looks fine with coin in hand. I say that because although most people don't like the cougar the way they did it, in hand it looks better (IMO) and I once had a couple of cougar heads/pelts, and the real cougars looked scary bad, and kind of scrawny faced like this one. So to me it's very realistic. :thumb:

 

I just received my coins from Provident Medals on Thursday 06/Oct. I had only put in my order about a week before I received shipping confirmation, so I wouldn't think you would have anything to worry about unless someone came in behind me and ordered up around 800,000 or so.

 

I was going to get 2 Grizzlies but they have been replaced by the Cougar at my dealer so I will get 2 of those for sure on the next little dip.

 

Hello,
I ordered my 2012 Candian Cougar Silver from -goldmart.com- if you are still looking for some and they also have 2011 Grizzly Silver too! Their prices are reasonable. Cougars are $3.99 over spot while the Grizzs are $4.99 over spot.

Hope that helps. Love you cat picture. lol

 

I didn't see any spots on my cougars, but I think one of the wolves I got from one of the magazine advertisement companies has spotting, so its not just from Provident, I think it is an issue with these coins in general.

 

I must have gotten really lucky with all of my coins because not a single one out of 60 has any milk spots.

 

Huh? Spots on cougars? Are you talking about a leopard? LOLOL
All felines like milk...LOLOL
:yes:

 

I've bought locally, just one of each for the collector in me. I did see examples with spotting and the dealer said he thought it might be caused by condensation during shipments...more specifically with the notion that they experienced large temperature swings during that process. However, I'm inclined to blame it on the RCM itself.

 

There's another forum where a member has reprinted the email from a distributor about milk spots, and the RCM telling them it's a planchet cleaning/prep process problem they've had since 1988, but they don't care and have no intention of changing anything because the coins are bullion and not collector coins.

The distributor is basically saying that when they get the coins in they can't return them or inspect them, so whoever gets them gets them. Customers of the distributor can return them, but the customer is charged a fee for restocking.

So, from what I've read so far, including this, about milk spots, and peoples attempts to take them off (at times, unsuccessfully).....it might due to the metal having acid baths that are not rinsed completely off before being struck to coins. It results in either immediate or shortly afterwards having milk spots. I think that the costs of improving the quality for bullion coins is a decision the RCM just doesn't want to incur.


So... quality is not an inherent right when you purchase bullion I guess. At least with Canada.

 

Thanks for that information, Kasia. Now it seems there are 2 things the Canadian Mint doesn't care about: production quality and the design/artwork attractiveness for the Wildlife coins.

 

I'm surprised to hear you talk about them being realistic. No knock to you or the coin itself..but I was thinking the RCM could have done a better job, and I don't say that at all when it comes to the RCM's offerings. Normally, they put out very beautiful coins, both for circulation AND NCLT coins. But, for some reason, this cougar.....I was looking at it and thought "put some wings on it and it would look like the New Jersey Devil" (look like some of the versions reported of it). Basically, I just thought they could have done a better job with realism.

BUT, if you've had heads and pelts (I haven't...lol), then you'd have better insight than I.

 

Coin in hand, I believe the cat looks better than I thought it would. Having taken a cat out of a tree, to me the look is correct.

I love 'em! (the coins..)

Lucy