I always wonder why minting companies who make silver rounds don't get into making rounds of bands. You could make only 500 rounds of someone like the Beatles, Hendrix, the Stones and you could make alot of money. Sure there are copyright laws but it could be done. So far I've only come across one Grateful Dead silver round, here's the link. What do you think, would you buy one? check this out, I'd buy one if I didn't have to pay sooo much!! Anyone? http://compare.ebay.com/like/310209...e948827&itemid=310209017514&ff4=263602_309572
If you look deeper into the world of silver art bars then you'll learn you can already find some of these things: Madonna, Hendrix, etc. Many of these people's estates are managed by licensing and rights management companies which have set limitations or defined their market, which doesn't include such products for whatever the reason. This topic is particularly not about 'bullion investing' as much as the creation of collectibles based on entertainers, which happen to be made out of precious metals. Usually, this sort of thing is mocked and derided by the numismatic community when they appear from any of the various private mints. Due to limited mintages, distribution expenses, associated advertising and production costs, copyright issues, etc. you will be paying a hefty premium for silver, hence it's not a wise investment and the sort of thing the majority of numismatic collectors can easily be persuaded to purchase for all of the above reasons. I'm quite surprized, though I probably shouldn't be, that you seem unaware of this as well as the very recent offering from the UK Royal Mint, who only just issued a John Lennon silver collectible coin. There are Beatles, Elvis and other bullion rounds to be sure and if you dig deep enough you will eventually discover there is something to match your other interests ready manufactured to fill that void in your life while attempting to woo you with the potential value of (uncertain/volatile priced) commodities. Perhaps, the better *investment* would be to invest in the companies that manage the rights to these celebrities so that you may take advantage of what the entire entertainment industry capitalizes off of memorabilia and collectible ephemera.
Yeah I've heard about the John Lennon but the rest you've posted weren't done by very reputable companies. At least not companies that would interest me. The John Lennon is doing very well tho even as far as an investment and I don't even think there made of silver.
ther is a gold john lennon coin, it is the only one in the world and has been donated by yoko for auction to raise funds for the alder hey childrens hospital in liverpool.
I like silver rounds because of the variety and some of the history behind them. But in the end, they are bullion and should command a bullion price. Don't fall for the idea that something becomes valuable because of a small mintage and a popular theme. Private mints figured out a long time ago that they can fool people into thinking something has value just because they planned it that way. Most of these made-for-collector items are a scam.
fret: I think you have hit on part of the problem with many of these issues, the companies 'private mints' that put them out are not the sort of vendors/dealers that those interested in investing and collecting numismatics really want's to deal with. I believe the Lennon coin sold out very very quickly upon release, based on some comments posted in a couple of other CT threads that discussed it a couple weeks back.
That single gold version of the coin was given by the Royal Mint to the Lennon estate and in turn, as you mentioned, put to auction... other than that, I do not believe the Lennon estate nor Ono had much interest and want to do with the coin issuance.
Off topic- John and Yoko were married mar. 20, 1969. Why do we all still call her Yoko Ono instead of Yoko Lennon?
