Royal Mint's £16.5m investment at Llantrisant

The Royal Mint is to invest £16.5m in new productions lines at its site in Llantrisant, Rhondda Cynon Taf.

It said it was the most significant investment in the plant for more than 40 years and would help it compete for new work both home and abroad.

As well as making coins for the UK it also manufactures coins for other countries, collectors' coins, and military medals.

It said the investment would double its nickel plating production capacity.

It will see the construction of two new production lines and an effluent plant.

The first phase is due to be complete by September and is part of a five-year growth plan.

Chief executive Andrew Stafford said: "The fact that we're able to take advantage of these investment opportunities is testament to the excellent work of the team at the Royal Mint.

"It highlights how we are continuing to build for the future, compete internationally as a UK manufacturer and bring our vision of 'Making Money for Everyone' to life."

Source: bbc.co.uk

Lahaina Restoration Foundation to hold Chinese New Year events

Studying the early currency system of China for over 30 years, Dennis Ryan is literally a wealth of knowledge.

Ryan, a retired teacher and part-time director of research for the Albany Legislature, is currently on Maui. He has visited the island every year since 1997.


Over time, he has generously donated a collection of Chinese coins to Lahaina Restoration Foundation (LRF).


In conjunction with Chinese New Year, Ryan will present the lecture “China’s First Coins” at the Wo Hing Museum, 858 Front St., on Friday, Feb. 19, at 6 p.m.


The community is invited to attend, and this fascinating lecture is free.


Ryan’s personal coin collection was built by purchasing items from auctions and collectors in places like Hong Kong and Singapore.


“My earliest piece hails from the Shang Dynasty 2200 B.C. The piece is a simple cowry shell,” said Ryan.


Ryan will share his knowledge and collection at the presentation.


And on Saturday, Feb. 20, LRF will usher in the Year of the Tiger with a lion dance by the martial arts team from Au’s Shaolin Arts Society from Oahu.


LRF will host a small celebration, including information on acupuncture from Maui Acupuncture, Qigong demonstrations by Corey Williams, calligraphy and more, at the Wo Hing Museum. Festivities begin at 10 a.m. and continue to 4 p.m.


Freshly made spring rolls and noodles will be on sale while supplies last.

Source: lahainanews.com

COTY in Berlin

United States Mint Director Ed Moy took a bow for the Mint and its American Eagle silver bullion coin Jan. 30 as he accepted the Most Popular Coin Award at the Coin of the Year Awards ceremony at the World Money Fair in Berlin, Germany.

Moy told the audience that the A.A. Weinman design on the silver Eagle has been popular for almost 100 years since it was first used on the half dollar in 1916.

The specific date of issue being honored was 2008, but it is hard not to mention the record level of sales recorded in 2009, and Moy did so.

Though not bullion coins, the top two award winners were also made of precious metals. The Coin of the Year, a gold 20 lati piece of Latvia, also bears a design from the same era as Weinman’s. In this case it was a 1922 work by Teodors Zalkalns that was not issued at the time it was created.

The obverse of the Latvian coin features a woman in a scarf representing motherhood and the reverse shows the staples of life, bread, milk in a jug and an apple that signify fertility and plenitude.

Accepting the Coin of the Year Award was Maruta Brukle, the head of the coin division of the Bank of Latvia and her boss, Janis Blums, who heads the bank’s cash department.

A silver 5,000 forint of Hungary was given the People’s Choice Award, which was selected by the public via online voting. It is a commemorative of the Tokaj wine region.

Accepting the award was a trio of officials – Ferenc Gaal, director of the Hungarian Mint; Terez Horvath, its commercial director; and Erica Lescko of the National Bank of Hungary.

This is the third time Hungary has won, making a clean sweep since the award was added to the Coin of the Year family of honors, which is raising some eyebrows among some hobbyists in Germany. Perhaps a tweaking of the award rules is in order, they suggest.

Presenting the awards was Dave Harper, editor of Numismatic News and executive editor of World Coin News, which sponsors the awards that have been given each year since 1984.

There is a time lag built into the selection process, so the awards were given for coins minted in 2008.

The World Money Fair has been chosen as the COTY awards venue because it hosts the largest gathering of mint and national bank officials in a numismatic context. This year some 50 institutions took booths in Berlin.

The show is also a very large coin show.

Hans-Henning Goehrum, president of the Money Fair, said attendance at the 2010 event ran about the same as in 2009.

Observers on the floor were guessing beforehand that the show was even better attended than last year.

Source: numismaster.com

Numismatics are for Collectors, Not Investors

As a precious metals investor, you may heard much about numismatic and "semi-numismatic" coins, particularly the St. Gaudens $20 double eagle gold coin. While coin collecting can be an interesting hobby, it is not necessarily related to metals investing. Coins of this type vary in value with the ebb and flow of the collector market and are not strictly tied to metal value. Also, these coins often go for much more over spot price than bullion coins.

One of the concepts that gets bandied about quite a bit is the idea of U.S. government confiscation. While it is true that the U.S. government did have a gold recall in 1933 by executive order of FDR, gold coins of a significant value over gold value were not subject to this recall. Many dealers use this to imply that in the event of another confiscation these older coins would fall in this category in order to sell these types of coins to the unsuspecting or newer metals investor. However, the confiscation issue is a red herring for several reasons:



* The dollar was backed by gold in 1933 and the recall was designed at least in part to stop the run on banks; the dollar no longer has any metal backing.
* St. Gaudens $20 coins in almost uncirculated to mint state conditions are still very common even considering their age due to decades of mass storage in European bank vaults.
* There is nothing that states that numismatic items could not be confiscated in the event of another recall; the original executive order no longer has any force of law.
* Gold is no longer used in regular-issue U.S. coinage (the American Eagle gold coin, although it has a face value, does not count) and is typically used only in jewelry and privately-held investment vehicles such as bars and bullion coins which would be harder to recall and account for. The majority of recalled gold coinage in 1933 was housed in bank vaults.
* As gold is no longer used as a monetary instrument by the U.S. government, confiscation is unlikely in any event.



Now, you may be wondering about silver in regards to this as well. Silver held sway as coinage for longer than gold, and some silver coins can still be found in circulation. However, silver has never been subject to confiscation, and its status as an important industrial metal gives good reason to believe that there will never be a silver recall.

90% and 40% silver U.S. coinage is still widely available, and although it sounds contrary to what I stated above, these coins are a good value - as long as they can be bought at near silver spot or less. This is an important distinction to make, as old silver coinage (often referred to as junk silver) often carries very little to no value as a collector item over the metal value. These coins, if anything, are semi-numismatic, but don't bank on collector value.

In short, if you approach this from the perspective of a metals investor never look at a coin for collector value. Collector markets are often hard to get a pulse on, and numismatics are much more illiquid than their bullion counterparts. If you're paying more than spot plus a modest premium, you're paying too much.

Source: bestcoin.com