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Worlds Largest Gold Coin Worth at Least 50 Million Dollars

The Australian mint has just produced the world’s largest gold coin. The coin is worth more than $50 million and weighs an amazing 1000 kg which is the equivalent of 2.2 tons. The giant gold coin resembles a massive disk that features a kangaroo on one side and the Queen’s profile on the other side.

The coin weighs 1 metric tonne, is made of 99.99% pure gold, and measures 80 cm wide, by 12 cm deep. The coin is official Australian legal tender and is now officially the biggest gold bullion coin in the world. The purity from the Perth mint is guaranteed by the West Australian government. It took 18 months in total to produce the coin.

The coin was minted at the Perth mint in Australia. The CEO of the Perth mint named Ed Harbuz is recently quoted saying that releasing the coin was, “an incredible challenge, one which few other mints would even consider.” This record-breaking gold coin is at least 10 times the size of the next largest gold coin in the world. It has a denomination 1 million Australian currency, however the coin is worth much more due to its gold content. Perth Mint chief executive Ed Harbuz said the coin is “the pinnacle of ingenuity and innovation.”

The next largest gold coin was made in Canada by the Royal Canadian mint. CEO of the Perth mint, Harbuz said this about the competition for the world’s largest, “we thought well, we’d better make it so much bigger that it’ll stay the biggest coin in the world for a long time.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCOn9uDW6U

 

Chinese Gold Coins

Gold Coins are issued from the the People’s Republic of China official mint. They have two general coin types: the Chinese Panda and the Chinese Unicorn. The former is the more popular among the two and is the one which is usually sold or bought in the market. The Chinese Unicorn was issued on 1986 and has a limited mintage hence making it quite unpopular with gold coin collectors. It features the Chinese unicorn in its obverse and the unicorn of the West on its reverse. The Chinese unicorn is also made from high quality gold – 24 karat – and is being sold at a weight of a twentieth part of an ounce. The coin has a face value of five Yuan and can be bought in the United States in almost mint condition.

The Chinese Panda is the most popular Chinese gold coin. They were first issued by the Chinese mint in 1982 and was always issued with a different figure of a panda each year. The trend was stopped however during 2001 and so both of those that were issued from 2001 and in 2002 contained the same Pandas. The variety of Pandas makes it a very collectible item and also its gold content. Proof types of this coin were only issued from 1986 to 1995 which makes them a rare commodity to come by.

There is also another Chinese gold coin which is quite popular among collectors but it does not really look like a coin at all. It is the China Year of the Monkey coin which is molded like a fan. It weighs for one-half of an ounce and is also available in the United States. This coin features the Chinese monkey and also the year and place of mintage.

Aside from them, the Chinese government also issued several other gold coins each depicting a different object and also a specific important event in history. In 1979, the Chinese Mint struck 13,000 pieces of a commemorative coin for the first anniversary of the International Children’s Year. It had a face value of 450 Yuan and is made from a lower karat of gold about 90%. The coin depicted two small children planting a tree. In 1993, the Peacock gold coin was issued with a fineness of 99.9% pure gold and with a face value of 100 Yuan. There is also the Endangered Wildlife gold coin which was released in 1994 that depicts the Chinese panda as an endangered animal. The coin has a 91.6% fineness and is made of eight grams of gold. In 1995, China issued the Dinosaur commemorative coin weighing one-half of an ounce. It is made from 24 karat gold and features the Wooden Pagoda in Shanxi in its obverse. The reverse of the coin carries the image of a dinosaur. The coin carried a face value of fifty Yuan and only two thousand pieces were struck for this issue.

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The last type of Chinese gold coin is the Guilin Scenery commemorative gold coin. It is rectangular in shape in contrast with the traditional type of coin and it showcases several famous landmarks of China such as the Flowery Bridge and the Elephant Trunk Hill in its obverse. It is also made from 24 karat gold and weighs one-half of an ounce.

Gold Panda Coin

The Chinese panda coin is one of the most popular types of gold coins in the world. It is issued by the People’s Republic of China but it is available almost anywhere in the world. The coin was first issued in 1982 and they have been sold at several weights and in various depictions of the Chinese Panda making them one of the more highly valued gold coins to collect in the world.

The first gold coin that was issued in China in bullion type, the Chinese Panda is available in several different weights – one, one-half, a quarter, and one-tenth of an ounce. The one-twentieth part of an ounce type of Chinese Panda was only added after a year.  The designs of the Chinese Panda comes is a newer form every single year making them one of the most collectible item by numismatics. This was however prohibited by the Chinese government in 2001, making the 2001 and the 2002 issue similar in design. These coins are struck in different mints in China and they do not have any minting mark like those which can be found in gold coins in the US. What is does contain however, are the date of issuance, the face value and also the obverse design of the coin.

The coin has the Temple of Heaven in its obverse and also the Chinese inscription of the People’s Republic of China. It also has the year of issuance and also the indication of whether it is a commemorative gold coin or the theme of the coin. The reverse side of the coin features the Chinese Panda which is different every single year. The success of this coin can only be seen in the amount of coins that were sold during the 1980s. It was widely used not just for gold coin collecting but also as embellishments in jewelries such as bracelets and earrings and also in earrings. The smaller sizes of the coins made them very versatile not just as an investment but also for accessories.

The design of the panda was however halted in 2001 when the People’s Republic of China adopted a new policy but the ensuing clamor for the usual method – which is having a different design each year – brought the changing designs back in 2003. The coins are officially issued by the China Gold Coin Corporation and the official distributor in the US is the Panda America. The coins are used as a legal tender in China although the actual value of the coin exceeds its stated face value either 500, 100 or 25 Yuan. A one gram Chinese Panda was especially issued in 1991 to make the Chinese Panda more affordable for the public and had a face value of three Yuan.

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The size and dimensions of a Chinese Panda depends on the weight of the coin which can range from one ounce up to one-twentieth of an ounce. There were weightier coins that were issued but the standard one ounce coin has a diameter of 27 mm and a thickness of 1.85 mm.

Canadian Maple Leaf Gold Coin

The Canadian Maple Leaf is the bullion coin of Canada and is issued by the Royal Canadian Mint. It was designed by Walter Ott and features the famous Canadian emblem on its obverse. It is made from either .999 gold or .9999 gold depending on the time on which the coin was issued. The later ones are made from the higher fineness as a sign of Canada’s higher standards in the production of gold coins. The coin is considered to be the purest type of gold coin that is available for collecting today.  The coin was first issued in 1979 to compensate for the market for gold coins as the South African Krugerrand was prohibited from being sold for some political issues. However, it can be said to be different from the Krugerrand in that it is made from 24 karat gold unlike the 22 karat Krugerrand.

The Canadian Maple Leaf is available in various weights ranging from one-twentieth of an ounce to one ounce. The face value of the coin starts from one Canadian dollar to fifty dollars but there is also a 1 kilogram coin which has a face value of one million dollars. In 1994 a one-fifteenth of an ounce coin was issued having a two dollar face value but it only came with a limited number of coins issued and were smaller in size which had made them valuable only as additions to jewelries. The coin proved to be not so popular hence the producing of the coin has been stopped.

In 2007, the mint issued a 1-million dollar gold coin which has a purity of 99.999% gold and weighs about one kilogram. It was issued to promote the popularity of the Canadian Maple Leaf and only a few were able to purchase the coin. This was done to promote the newer type of Canadian gold coin which has a higher purity than the past coins that were issued by the mint. It was sold at the price of two-and-a-half million dollars to three million Canadian dollars. The coin was designed by Stanley Witten.

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The coin was manufactured with a .999 fineness of gold and was only changed to a .9999 purity in 1982.  The purest that was ever produced, one having .99999 fineness was produced to commemorate special events and was particularly difficult to store and handle as it is very soft being pure gold.  Most of the Canadian Maple Leafs that were issued from 2007 were usually designed by Stanley Witten and usually portrays Queen Elizabeth II on one of its sides. The coin is officially struck at the Ottawa branch of the Royal Canadian Mint. The high quality of gold that the coin possesses makes it very difficult to handle as it is more subject to being damaged by handling. This has been one of the drawbacks of having a gold coin in such a very high karat but if you are after the quality of the coin, this will not be such a big problem. 

Austrian Philharmonic Coin

The Austrian Philharmonic is one of the purest gold coins that is available in the world today. Gold coin investors prefer the higher quality of gold that can be found in this coin and also the excellent design of the coin. The coin comes in one ounce and is also known by collectors as the Vienna Philharmonics. The coin can be compared in its purity to the Canadian Maple Leaf which also has a high gold content. It has come to be one of the most popular gold coins that is being sold having its peak in sales in the 1990s. The US however is not one of the most avid buyers of the coin and sales are still not doing as well as in the other parts of the world. The Austrian Philharmonic has a higher gold fineness than the Krugerrand and the Gold Eagle coins which makes them more costly than the two.

The coin can be bought from either the mint itself or through some second-hand dealer where the coin’s premiums can be more costly. The popularity of the coins in the United States has led to fewer secondary markets for this coin although it has a good performance in the primary market. It is similar to the performance of the Krugerrand in the secondary markets.

The coin features one of the pride of Austrian culture and music, the organ in Vienna’s most famous concert hall, the Musikverein. It houses the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra which is considered to be the best in the world. The coin has a weight of one ounce and a face value of either two thousand Austrian Schillings or one hundred Euros depending on the date of their issuance. Hence, it is one of the gold coins that have a face value for two different currencies. The reverse side of the coin features the different musical instruments from the orchestra in such excellent detail making it one of the most beautiful coins in the world.

The coin is larger in size than the American Gold Eagle and the Krugerrand which only has a 32.7 mm diameter whereas the Philharmonic has a 37 mm diameter. It is also thinner than the former two in that is only has a 2 mm diameter. If you purchase the coins from the Austrian Mint they will usually be in rolls of coins in a plastic tube. The Austrian mint is one of the longest running mint operating for more than eight hundred years already. In that span of time, the coin has been able to turn up hundreds of designs in coins.

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The Austrian Philharmonic is one of the purest types of gold coins that is available in the market and is also one of the most beautiful in terms of design. The coin is comparable to the Canadian Maple Leaf in terms of its purity. It is the only European coin which has been produced in large numbers and is also one of the most popular.