Kangaroo Bullion Coin

Before buying a gold coin, one of the most important questions is to find out whether this is meant for numismatic collection or investment purpose. Buying a gold coin is not cheap and it can set you back by a couple of thousand dollars. So, take your time to think over this. If you are buying the gold coin for investment purpose, then coins like American Eagle, China Panda, Canada Maples and Australia Kangaroo are some of the most popular coins in the market. If you are buying a coin for numismatic collection, then these coins may not be so relevant to you and it may be wiser to choose coins that are of limited mintage and rich historical values. Most bullion coins come with unlimited mintage and they will be produced yearly for the investors. They are legal tender in the country of production but you would not of course use it for your grocery shopping. The main purpose of the bullion coins is meant for investment and it should remain so. However, some bullion coins like China Panda and Australia Kangaroo come with limited mintage and the coins are minted with different design every year. However, I would consider these bullion coins as semi-numismatic at best and semi-numismatic coins usually carry very little premium above spot market prices. Nevertheless, Australia Kangaroo are really beautiful coins and every one of them comes with hard plastic encapsulation. The Australia Kangaroo has always been minted by Perth Mint since the 1980s. Other than Kangaroos, Perth Mint produces other bullion coins such as Koala coins, Kookaburra coins and Lunar coins.

Below is some information from Perth Mint regarding the mintage of the 1 oz Kangaroo gold bullion coin for the past ten years. Surprisingly, Australia Kangaroo 1 oz gold bullion coin will come with unlimited mintage in 2014 and this will definitely affect the numismatic value of the coin (if there is any in the first place). Anyway, bullion coins should only be worth the value of the metal.

Year	Max Mintage	Declared Mintage
2004	350,000	61,278
2005	350,000	68,428
2006	350,000	49,991
2007	350,000	46,891
2008	350,000	63,429
2009	350,000	298,016
2010	350,000	152,229
2011	350,000	190,681
2012	350,000	198,207
2013	350,000	341,417

*Declared mintage is the final mintage of the coin.
 

The sale of gold bullion coins normally follows gold price very closely. When gold price goes up, the sale of bullion coins tends to trend up. However, before gold price hit the peak in 2011-2012, the declared mintage had started to come down in 2010 and I believe this may be due to the fact that the price of the gold was getting too expensive and many investors felt that the escalating prices were not sustainable at that point in time. In gist, the risks and return of investing in gold bullion coins are similar to other gold investment such as gold futures and gold ETF. Perhaps, the only difference is that gold coin is physical in nature and you can take it out at times to admire it.

If you are really interested in purchasing a gold bullion coin after reading the above, then the next question is where do you buy the coin? The obvious answer will be to buy it from the most reputable store with the most reasonable price. In Singapore, you can buy bullion coins from many places and many of them will promise you that you can sell the coin back to them at a certain price. However, I am not really sure about the reliability of this scheme if gold price were to fall for a prolonged period of time. Personally, I prefer the most traditional and safest way – buy it from the bank. UOB carries some of these bullion coins and I believe their prices are quite competitive. They will give you a receipt after your purchase and you can sell the coin back to them anytime with the receipt. So, please do not throw your receipt away.