Is anyone familiar with the Australian 1 oz. silver Great White Shark and Redback Spider coins? The Numismatic News newsletter featured a story about the shark coin a few days ago. This is a link to an ebay listing of a Redback Spider coin. This is a link to an ebay listing of a Great White Shark coin.
Dreamer94,those are nice medal-coins,but they're from Tuvalu,not Australia,even though they were struck at the Perth Mint. Here's an article; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu . Aidan.
Thanks for the information. I wondered what Tuvalan meant. Does the Perth mint do subcontract work minting coins for Tuvalu? I read that both of these coins have a mintage of only 5,000. Is that true?
DREAMER94, I bought the "RED SPIDER" coin from the seller of the "Great White Shark" coin a few months ago (jac_online I believe). Actually, I bought 2 of them. The coin is beautiful! And the transaction with those people went just fine! A very good seller. I didn't know about the Shark coin though. I need to read the article you talked about in your post. In my opinion the Perth Mint makes some really beautiful coins/medals! Are you going to bid on the "Shark" coin? swick
The Perth Mint has struck medal-coins for both Tuvalu & the Solomon Islands in the same way that the New Zealand Mint has been striking medal-coins for both the Cook Islands & Fiji. As to the mintages of these medal-coins,they are actually quite low.5,000 pieces sounds about right for those Tuvaluan medal-coins. I'm not sure where the Tuvaluan circulation coins are struck,but I think they are struck at the Royal Mint at Llantrisant,Wales. Aidan.
So far, my experience with them has been good. I bought several items (including the shark) and they combined shipping and insurance. I bought the Spider with "buy it now" so I would save on the shipping. If it helps you, they seem to have a steady supply of both coins, so you can take your chances on an auction and you'll have another chance.
