My last purchase from them was the Great Canadian Explorer Series. I haven't bought anything from them because their offerings are too expensive and they are getting ridiculous with their subjects like Superman , Mickey Mouse, etc. Now when I go to look at my collection on their website I find that when I click on a coin that I bought from them I can only see the reverse.
I live in Canada, the RCM has not made a decent looking coin since the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Topics like Superman/ others are just God awfull. Most other Countries have gone the same way with those, "coloured " coins, ultra modern designs. Russia/ UK/ still make good looking coins though.
If you want to buy the RCM crapola, get it on the secondary market 3 years down the road. You can usually get them for a little more than 50% of the issue price. Except for some of the wildlife and a few of the initial freekies, very few will ever appreciate over the issue price .. the RCM is killing Canadian numismatics.
I agree, we had the chief coin designer at our Ottawa Coin Club meeting last month. I brought in some of my coins for "Show and tell" The 2 coins where from Regensburg minted around 1750s. I basically told him, and rest of members present, why where the mints back in 1600-1800 able to strike such beautifull coinage, while todays coins are drab/ boring and just plain kitch. Here is one of the coins I from Regensburg, that I showed....
While I agree that 90 percent of what they do is just garbage for grandmothers waiting at the post office to buy for their grandchildren, I love some of their wildlife coins. As long as it's not colored then I'll probably like it. Some of them do have quite a premium, but I think any collectors coin from any mint can say the same.
I bought the 5 - Great Lakes pieces issued in 2014/15 on the aftermarket. Really innovative, but I wouldn't buy them directly. Very few items they create now have any real significance worthy of making something. They can't even wait for centennials to strike commems - they jump the gun and do the 90th anniversary!
The Australian Mint is right up there with ours in producing crappy coins for collectors. But, look at the UK, they kept some of their classic older designs. Sovereign dates back to 1817. Germany produced some of the most magnificent coinage from 1400-1918. Its been downhill ever since the Kaiser abdicated. Then you have countries like Biafra (now extinct) fighting a brutal civil war vs Nigeria, straved into submission by the Nigerians....but they produced beautifull coins.
I would guess that the things like the Superman or Star Trek coins aren't really intended for coin collectors; they're intended for fans of Superman and Star Trek. The mint obviously must think there's a market out there and they can make some money by reaching beyond coin collectors. At least there's a lot to choose from and maybe you'll find something you like. The U.S. mint makes a handful of coins each year beyond the regular circulation coins, and if those don't appeal to you, you're out of luck.
These are beautiful. I had forgotten all about Biafra with the rest of the carnage going on in the world.
Once again the UN twiddled their thumbs while the Nigeria ethnically cleansed the Biafrans. Same thing in 1990s when the Hutus commited genocide in Rwanda, 1974/5 when the Communist Khmer Rouge thugs murdered quarter of Cambodian population.
Talking about RCM, our Dollar sucks big time. Now worth 74.22 cents US For us to buy.... UK Pound=1.75 EURO=1.54 US$=1.36 SWF=1.40 Enough to make a grown man cry
I've always wondered: here in the U.S. when you buy a book it has one price on the back for the U.S. and another price for Canada, usually a few dollars higher. But there was a time a few years ago when the U.S. and Canadian dollar were almost equivalent. Did you still pay a premium for these things when that was the case?
Up until a few years ago, there was a HUGE difference in book prices ... nearly 50% when the difference was only 15-20%. Now that the exchange rate has the Canadian dollar worth much less (about 1/3), the premium for books is less than what it was back then. I think that many recurring items imported into Canada have 3 or 5-6 year contracts, so the exchange rate changes faster than the contract specifics do.
No, when Stephen Harper,s Conservatives where in power our Dollar was par with the US When sending money for coin auction wins in US$, I got even exchange, how I yearn for those days again.
Yes, even when I bought my US made Arctic Cat snowmobile, there was still a markup from what someone in Wisconsin would have paid for same machine....you can't win for trying in other words called being "ripped off"
Yes, there are exceptions But you as a Hungarian collector..... Look at the great coins that were struck in Transylvania 1550-1770 Then the beautifull Austro-Hungarian coins 1806-1916 Coins under Horthy regime.