.999 silver

[+rustynickle]

Hello All!

 

What a great game this is. Our family has only been caching a few weeks but it is just the beginning. Like many cachers we are interested in the trackable coins. I have not seen and pure silver or pure gold coins available at this time. I am willing to put a series together starting with silver and later moving onto gold. I have found a mint that has the capability to handle bullion and the serial numbers that are required to track the items.

 

This is my thinking at this time.

 

Total coins 999

First run 300

 

Sale price undetermined

 

 

I am not a gifted artist so I would like to have a contest to design the coin and icon.

Each winner would receive 10 coins in trade for their winning designs.

 

At this time I am just gauging interest in the project so please give me any feedback you may have.

 

Thanks,

Rustynickle

Edited July 2, 2007 by rustynickle

[+wolfmaster]

There are some very nice .999 silver coins for Geocaching out there now. And as much as I love silver coins, $42 seems steep when you can get American Eagles for $22. In quantities of 300 I don't see a lot of collectable value in the coins. Just my opinion though. And I'm a collector of shiny things so I'll probably try to buy one anyway

[+Droo]

That's awfully expensive to be dropping in a tupperware container in the woods somewhere.

[+WWC-World's Worst Cacher]

There have been at least two made. I think for both there were only 100 silver coins made and while I think they did sell out, it was not an instant thing. I think that at even a more modest price you would have a difficult time selling that quantity of coins.

 

And at $42 I probably would not buy one.

[+rustynickle]

Thanks for the thoughts!

 

I should be clearer about the concept. My original idea was to have these minted in the very highest quality (double stamped) and placed into a sealed clear plastic protector and never touched by human hands. And include a certificate of authenticity.

 

Rustynickle

[+rasj & Stacey]

The SCGA also had a non-trackable .999 silver coin.

[+ByrnedFish]

There have been at least two made. I think for both there were only 100 silver coins made and while I think they did sell out, it was not an instant thing. I think that at even a more modest price you would have a difficult time selling that quantity of coins.

 

And at $42 I probably would not buy one.

 

Thanks for the thoughts!

 

I should be clearer about the concept. My original idea was to have these minted in the very highest quality (double stamped) and placed into a sealed clear plastic protector and never touched by human hands. And include a certificate of authenticity.

 

Rustynickle

 

thats how it was with the nevada silver coin. 100 silver ones made and in a sealed plastic protector. i dont know how fast they sold. they are beautiful coins. im pretty sure they cost 35 $.

[57chevy]

Alaska puts out a .999 silver geocoin and a .999 silver with gold relief each year from the Alaska Mint, USA geocoins have put out a couple, Coins and Pins have also put out one, I think South Carolina and Nevada put one out too. There's probably more. I'm sure there's a market for em' but don't be surprised if you don't sell out right off the bat due to price, And... you having only been a cacher for a couple weeks probably won't be a big selling point either.

[+4damFam]

The 2006 Geocache America geocoin had a minting in .999 pure silver. It's still available and sells for less than $30...on sale it's only $24.

[+Renegade Knight]

Take the cost of a reguar coin. Add the spot price of silver without deducting for the cost of bronze, and 22 bucks is a rip off. 42 even more so.

 

You need another company.

[+tiki]

OK - gotta chime in here....

 

First off, I hope I am not breaking any forum rules by discussing one of my old (non-trackable) coins - if so - I'm sorry!

 

I made an edition of 10 sterling silver coins a year or so ago on a whim to see how my personal coins would look in silver. I was able to sell the ultra-small edition fairly quickly - but I am sure that would not have been the case if I minted 200+ silver coins. Casting in precious metals is a costly and painstaking business. You don't really sweat it if you spill a bit of bronze - but silver is so $$ that you keep track of every scrap (even more so with gold). This extra care in the casting/stamping process means it is more costly (in labor and materials - above and beyond the casting metal price) to mint precious metals than is is to press coins out of a base metal. Where am I going with all this? Welp, I guess I feel that a coin of such expense (both in labor and in metal value) kind of goes beond the label of "Geocoin". Yes - I know, how can I say that when I cast silver "GeoCoins" myself? I did a very small edition that I knew would be secreted away into binders and picture frames and would never see the inside of a cache. But to make a trackable coin in a large edition number that is sealed and can't be touched just seems weird to me. More a collector's art coin than a geocoin. But now I've opened the flood gates to the age-old "what is a GeoCoin" debate so I better get outta here while the gettin's good!

 

Tiki

[+Renegade Knight]

OK - gotta chime in here....

 

First off, I hope I am not breaking any forum rules by discussing one of my old (non-trackable) coins - if so - I'm sorry!...Tiki

 

I get the feeling you are a small shop and you said you cast. Casting of course is a different process. A coin maker has much better equipment and would press blanks. A Very Exact Process. The US Mint will use a more intense process on some coins to create a proof or better finish (Bullion coins and Proof Coins have different finishes from the US Mint). Overall though the cost of pressing a coin is going to be the same except for the materials. Unless there is some extra process (Like sticky fingered employees walking off with half your metal...)...

 

My take is that most of it's extra profit because "they can" to offset some of the competition with the cheaper coins. But that's my opinion based on a smidgen of knowledge and a lot of speculation.

[+tiki]

A coin maker has much better equipment and would press blanks. A Very Exact Process. The US Mint will use a more intense process on some coins to create a proof or better finish (Bullion coins and Proof Coins have different finishes from the US Mint). Overall though the cost of pressing a coin is going to be the same except for the materials. Unless there is some extra process (Like sticky fingered employees walking off with half your metal...)...

 

Hey Renegade Knight -

 

I'm afraid I have to disagree that the cost of pressing a silver coin vs. a base alloy coin at a big mint is the same except for the materials. The specialized equipment that you mention above that mints (like the US Mint) use for pressing precious metals is exactly what I am talking about when I say that minting silver coins is intrinsically more costly than the base metal coins geocachers are used to. "untouched" Proof coins are pressed in clean room out of precisely calibrated and tested alloys. The base metal Geocoins pressed in china and elsewhere are done in in a much more "relaxed" atmosphere with less specialized machinery and less exacting tolerances for alloy composition and blank size. The cost of that fancy equipment and extra care is passed into the cost of the coin.

Ok - I gotta get back to work!

 

tiki

[+rustynickle]

Thank you all for your input. You may have saved me an expensive mistake.

 

Well, I don’t think the economics of minting will make this a reasonable venture. It appears that the total demand would be about 100 coins. Minting is a very expensive proposition. Each side costs between $800 and $2400 depending on the complexity. Spot price for silver is almost $15 per ounce and the high quality minting, cases and serial numbers are $6 per coin so the cost for each coin is $21 plus the dies. If you have to divide the cost of the dies over only 100 coins the overhead for each coin would be a minimum of $16 per coin if the design is kept simple. At these small numbers I can’t distribute the die cost over enough coins.

 

So, I will keep this thread open a few days and look at this again when i have more experience.

 

Thanks again all. I would sure hate to be sitting on 300 coins that i couldn't move. Yikes!

 

Thanks again for the input and ill see you in the field.

 

Rustynickle

[+pghlooking]

I am always amazed at a new person coming in here with a coin idea, and having the price BEFORE they even have a design! Whatever happened to getting a design together and going to a coin company with it to get your prices before you start setting them, or at least announcing them?

 

Regardless of that, I don't see many people buying them, and surely not for a travelling coin. How many of us can barely keep their $8 coins out there travelling without being stolen or muggled. At $42 a pop I am sure you would have a couple that would travel, but I am sure most would never see the outsidde of a binder, in which case is tracking even worth it? I guess if you are paying this much another $1.50 isn't even going to be noticed.

 

Sorry but doesn't seem like there is enough information such as even what the coin is about to be of interest. Most coins start with a concept, not a metal, and then work from there. But hey what do I know.

 

I know of at least one person who will be along shortly to completely disagree with me, so go for it!

[Son of Cyclops]

You could just make a coin plated in gold or silver for the same look and you could do that with tracking for about 550 dollars.

[+Renegade Knight]

A coin maker has much better equipment and would press blanks. A Very Exact Process. The US Mint will use a more intense process on some coins to create a proof or better finish (Bullion coins and Proof Coins have different finishes from the US Mint). Overall though the cost of pressing a coin is going to be the same except for the materials. Unless there is some extra process (Like sticky fingered employees walking off with half your metal...)...

 

Hey Renegade Knight -

 

I'm afraid I have to disagree that the cost of pressing a silver coin vs. a base alloy coin... The cost of that fancy equipment and extra care is passed into the cost of the coin.

Ok - I gotta get back to work!

 

tiki

 

Silver and Gold tend to be softer metals than Bronze. You should be able to use the same die. If you compare apples to apples it should be like I said. However, I have to agree. If they do spend the extra time and money to polish the die, provide a presentation case to offer a proof quality coin...it's going to cost more than a standard coin that happens to be made out of a nicer metal.

 

The Alaska Mint does do the extra work and provide the case, but...I rather like the Bullion Coin version of the current 1oz US Silver coin over the proof version (meaning you can make a nice coin without the extra cost). One mint (not the Alaska Mint) set their price at spot +5 bucks for a one oz coin to use that metal. A lot cheaper than 42, a bit less than the 20.00 that used to be the going price for a silver coin.

Edited July 2, 2007 by Renegade Knight

[+rustynickle]

ah, Your abolutly right. Please forgive me. What I would like to do is leverage the 5 in my name to draw attention to the best 5/5 caches out there. The back of the coin would be constant geocaching tails side. The heads side would have a landscape view from that particular cache as well as the name, location, owner, coordinates and the year.

Edited July 2, 2007 by rustynickle