Do mintage figures affect the value of a coin including bullion?

What is Mintage of a Coin and how does it affect the value of the coin?

When we talk about mintage of a coin, we are referring to the number of copies issued of a coin during a period. Usually bullion coins for e.g. the Canadian Maple Leaf, American Eagle, Austrian Philharmonic and etc (excluding those special edition, commemorative edition and etc from the same mint) have unlimited mintage throughout the year. Does the mintage of a coin affect a buyer for bullion then?

Well to be honest it might not affect you if you are investing in investment grade bullion coins instead of numismatic coins. However, we categorized some coins as “semi-numismatic” and generally the mintage does affect the value of the coin. These are coins that have both characteristics of a bullion and numismatic coin. A quick example, in 2019 the total mintage of American Eagle silver coin 1oz was 15,032,000 pcs whereas the Australian Lunar silver coin 1oz had a maximum mintage of only 300,000 pcs. Although Australian Lunar silver coin is a bullion, the mintage is 50 times less than American Eagle silver coin and it has a different design every year based on the Chinese Zodiac. The Lunar series from Australia is well sought after by investors and usually these investors would want to complete their collection if they missed out or couldn’t purchase a particular year. Hence are willing to pay a higher premium in order to collect them. This creates a numismatic value on top of its metal value.

Another interesting example, in 2018, the Austrian Philharmonic gold coin 1oz had a mintage of 318,334 pcs. In contrast, the Mexican Libertad gold coin 1oz mintage was only at 2050 pcs. That is approximately 155 times less than the Austrian Philharmonic, and although the Libertad design every year is the same, this low mintage results in a higher demand. Thus premiums for Libertad Gold coins are generally way higher as well and years with lower mintages will command a much higher premium.

Does this mean that those who bought these “semi-numismatic” coins can sell it at a premium in future considering it has added numismatic value? This really depends on who you are looking to sell it to. If you are selling it to coin collectors or coin dealers who are willing to pay high premiums for a relatively rare coin, then the answer is yes, you can get more than the metal value. But if you are selling to a bullion dealer, most of the time they only recognize the metal value of the coin. They might bid at a higher price, but it might still be far off from your expected price.

When it comes to investment, we always encourage clients to do more research and plan their exit strategy. If you are planning to get a bullion coin as an investment and intend to sell it off when precious metal prices are higher to earn some profit, a bullion coin that doesn’t have a mintage cap might be a better choice as it tends to have lower premiums. If you prefer something different and you have contacts to someone who is interested with numismatic or semi-numismatic coin, then it might be a good idea to consider semi-numismatic or numismatic coins.