Chinese 10 Yuan & Australian 1 Dollar 1993 Silver

[incuerpo 0]

Hi

Starting to feel like a bit of a free-loader, but i have a query on a couple more coins that were left to me.

I have been left a 5 Yuan commemorative Marco Polo Chinese coin which i have been able to research as a mintage of 30,000, struck in 0.900 silver and weighing 15g.

However i have also been left a 1994, Rembrandt commemorative 10 yuan coin of similar type and was wondering if anyone had information about silver content, & mintage numbers. Both coins are in capsules and are of excellent quality.

I have also been left an Australian 1 dollar Kangaroo coin with Certificate Of Authenticity stating coin details (weight, size, silver content etc), but am struggling to find out mintage numbers as some put it as low as 15,000 and others as high as 73,000.

I am also wondering if i am right in thinking that this was the 1st year the australia mint released these silver proof coins??

If anyonecan help, along with ANY idea of what i might get at a reputable dealer should i wish to sell that would be great.

Still undecided about wether to hold on to them or not (advice again??)

Thank you very much all for you time & assistance..

Richard

[Chris Perkins 228]

Get rid of all awful modern toot unless it has a mintage of lower than 1000. If the mintage is 15,000 it's 15,000 too many!

In the late 60s the mints of the world finally realised that they could make lots of money selling new coins to the public rather than just making them to spend. Since then, they churn out as many commemorative coins and sets as they possible can. Some look nice (and if you think they look nice, fair enough, you should keep them) but after a few years when they are no longer new-new the vast majority are just worth their metal value. A mintage limit of 5000 is all very well, but if you can't find 5000 people that want it, then it's completely irrelevant.

All of them get kept in their cases, so even in 100 years it's likely that many would have escaped being melted and there will still be lots around (in perfect condition still). It's all far too commercial you see, which makes modern commemoratives common and in nearly all cases, totally uncollectable and practically valueless. Compared to say a Victorian crown from a year when no proofs were made....At the time hardly anyone thought about saving a new one and they weren't made in large numbers specially for 'collectors'. As a result, a truly uncirculated (like new) Victorian crown is worth many times its silver value, because it's bloody rare. Compare that with a modern crown, which for a start rarely get spent so never get worn. Even in 200 years a 2008 crown will be many times more common (in mint condition) than a 100 or 200 year old crown is today.

I'm not just saying that because I'm biased towards older coins, that's how I can see it going.

There may be people with a different opinion and I know that there are some modern issues that are in demand or that have some kind of error or are genuinely rare (I have no experience with Chinese coins or Isle of Man Nigel Mansell coins (good F1 driver, but to see him on a coin would make me puke)). People are free to collect what they like, but all too often I encounter people that have inherited a huge amount of modern coins from some poor old lady only to find that selling them for anything like what was paid for them is an impossibility.

My advice to novice collectors is to either collect what people don't collect or to find the best you can afford of coins that are not in a fancy package with some meaningless mintage limit!

Sorry incuerpo I didn't mean to moan....I know these coins were obtained by you and it's encouraging that you want to learn about them.