Star Wars Coins Issued By Pacific Island Nation

19061969 wrote in with a link about how the Pacific Island of Niue is issuing a set of commemorative Star Wars coins. While the $2 coins can be used as legal tender on the island, the government hopes they'll be bought by collectors and help increase tourism to the tiny nation. From the article: "The coins, which will show a Star Wars character on one side and the Queen of England on the other, will be worth NZ$2, but made of NZ$117.25 worth of silver, meaning that if you're looking for practical tender, these aren't the coins you're looking for. 'You wouldn't want to go and spend them because they're only worth $2, but the value is much more than that,' Chris Kirkness of the New Zealand Mint told the Australian Associated Press."

Comments

I say buy all of them

[youn]

melt them... profit, and buy the dvd... sounds good :)

Re:I say buy all of them

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the coins are being sold for a considerable premium over the spot price of silver.

A set of 4 1-ounce coins is £239.80.

Spot price of silver is about £25 per ounce, or 100 for 4. So there's about a 240% premium for the coins.

Re:I say buy all of them

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because the logical conclusion here is that they're selling NZ$117.25 worth of silver for NZ$2, not that they're selling a $2 coin for $117.

Re:I say buy all of them

[p0p0]

Read the grandparent. There is this lovely little thing called "context".

Re:I say buy all of them

[h4rr4r]

The point is it refutes the ACs comment about buying them and melting them down. Doing that would cost you money not make it.

Re:I say buy all of them

[ciderbrew]

you got to spend money to make money ?!?

Re:I say buy all of them

[tolkienfan]

Whoosh!

Re:I say buy all of them

[Tekfactory]

If GP poster could afford it maybe he means buy all the coins, melt half of them or so, then sell the rest on ebay as "rare" and see how much the price goes up.

Not that that's what the GP wrote, but there is a way to make that plan work.

Re:I say buy all of them

[Anonymous Coward]

What the HELL are you talking about?
My grandparents have no interest in mycology.

Re:I say buy all of them

[superwiz]

No, you don't want to melt them. Since they are legal tender, they can be declared at their face value for tax purposes. The moment you melt them, you'd "gain" the difference in price of the metal and the nominal value of the coin and owe taxes on it. This is different from US issuing golden eagle and such. The golden eagle is "circulated". So it cannot be used as legal tender.

Re:I say buy all of them

[superwiz]

Sorry, I meant, of course, that golden eagles are "uncirculated".

Re:I say buy all of them

[_0xd0ad]

American eagle gold coins are legal tender.

Re:I say buy all of them

[flaming error]

I'm going to ask my employer to pay me $1 an hour - in gold eagles. We'll all save big on taxes.

Re:I say buy all of them

[superwiz]

The particular issue described on that page might be. But, in general, American Eagle issues are "surplus" issues on "uncirculated" coins. It is also possible that the page put up by the mint is plain wrong (from the legal stand point). I don't know about your employer, but if they were true legal tender, you'd be able to buy a car with a dozen of them and only owe a sales tax on the face-value of the coins.

Re:I say buy all of them

[_0xd0ad]

No, in general, US mint American eagle gold and silver bullion coins are also legal tender, like the proof coins are.

Produced from gold mined in the United States, American Eagles are imprinted with their gold content and legal tender "face" value. ... When purchased in the form of legal tender bullion coins, gold can be affordable, as well as easy to buy and store.

American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins are affordable investments, beautiful collectibles, thoughtful gifts and memorable incentives or rewards. Above all, as legal tender, they're the only silver bullion coins whose weight and purity are guaranteed by the United States Government. They're also the only silver coins allowed in an IRA.

Now, regarding your other point:

if they were true legal tender, you'd be able to buy a car with a dozen of them and only owe a sales tax on the face-value of the coins

I don't know whether or not that would work, but when the seller of the car tried to convert the coins to their real value (rather than their face value) you can be sure they'd be expected to pay taxes on the increase.

Re:I say buy all of them

[roman_mir]

Great racket by the government, isn't it?

Gold and silver coins are still legal tender in USA, but if you hold gold/silver the government will want you to pay capital gains tax if you sell, but the only reason why the nominal prices in USD are going higher is due to the inflation that the Fed creates.

So in reality they want this capital gains tax from you because you managed not to be affected by the government created inflation and they are pretty pissed about it.

The correct thing to do of-course is to move your gold/silver out of US and to put it into a bank (if any bank outside of US will want to deal with you of-course, because US government made it pretty much impossible now for the so called 'free' people of USA to have bank accounts outside of USA) and have gold/silver backed credit card, which will convert the metal into currency for you when you need it. This way you get real inflation protection and if you can manage this somehow, you won't have to pay the crazy capital gains tax on actual money!

Re:I say buy all of them

[Anonymous Coward]

Uncirculated is just a grading term meaning the coin was never used "in the wild" for transactions, even though it could be technically. The thing is if you look at Gold Eagles from 1930s some of them actually ARE circulated. This is part of the appeal of American coins to collectors over say some place in Asia or Europe. American coins going back to the 1700s are still legal tender and so will carry a counterfeiting charge if you forge them, while antique coins in Asia and Europe do not have this legal protection from fakes. Also just because it's uncirculated doesn't mean it's mint, since sometimes banks have just smashed them together in bags resulting in scratches and dings. These days though if you are buying gold coins as an investment or collector you should probably be buying coins that have been graded and sealed by a reputable company like NGC or PCGS.

Re:I say buy all of them

[Anonymous Coward]

Double Eagles have a face value of 20$ so it it would take about 1000 of them to pay for a cheap car, that's far from a dozen...

Re:I say buy all of them

[wjsteele]

You kind of missed the point, didn't you? Try reading the above again and figure out WHY someone would accept a few $20 coins for a car. Maybe if you read it again... maybe a couple times... you might catch on.

Bill

Re:I say buy all of them

[_0xd0ad]

Depends on how cheap the car is.

And on how cheap the seller is willing to sell for if you're paying in gold bullion coins using their face value instead of their real value.

Re:I say buy all of them

[Anonymous Coward]

If you trade them for bullion value then it falls under barter and would be subject to whatever the tax law says about that. Duh.

Re:I say buy all of them

[Anonymous Coward]

Capital gain tax in New Zealand would only apply if you were "in the business" of making money by doing this. Also, defacing the Queen of New Zealand is also a criminal offence.

Re:I say buy all of them

[superwiz]

I don't know whether or not that would work, but when the seller of the car tried to convert the coins to their real value (rather than their face value) you can be sure they'd be expected to pay taxes on the increase.

Unless, of course, he deposited them in his IRA account at face value and then sold them from the IRA account. Come to think of it, if they are legal tender isn't this a way to get around the $16000 a year IRA contribution limit? Contribute the entire amount in gold eagles at face value? And then (once they've been deposited) sell them at whatever the market will bare?

Re:I say buy all of them

[Anonymous Coward]

If GP poster could afford it maybe he means buy all the coins, melt half of them or so, then sell the rest on ebay as "rare" and see how much the price goes up.

Not that that's what the GP wrote, but there is a way to make that plan work.

No, that'd be stupid. If you really wanted to drive the price up, not selling them would be enough (assuming they didn't make more). Melting them is fucking stupid when you could achieve the exact same effect by lying.

news for nerds

[hjf]

Slashdot is finally honoring its slogan!

Re:news for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

Scroll up, really do it, see there in the upper left. The slogan has been gone for a while.

Re:news for nerds

[Anonymous Coward]

Scroll up, really do it, see there in the upper left. The slogan has been gone for a while.

It's the HTML doc title still.

Re:news for nerds

[ciderbrew]

Dear AC You have advanced a level: +1 Geek, -1 luck with girls, +2 cool to other Geeks.

Re:news for nerds

[Smivs]

These are not the coins you are looking for!

Re:news for nerds

[Coren22]

What about girl geeks? Do you get a +1 there?

Bullion?

[Millennium]

Isn't this really just a set of bullion coins, up to and including the fact that they're technically legal tender but you'd have to be out of your mind to actually spend them? Or are they hoping that value to collectors might push the value of these things up even further than the cost of the silver itself?

Re:Bullion?

[Samantha Wright]

Yes. Yes exactly.

Re:Bullion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even bother to read the whole summary?

'You wouldn't want to go and spend them because they're only worth $2, but the value is much more than that,'

It's even pointed out right in there that they aren't really meant to be used around as payment even if they can be. Apparently your low UID didn't imbue you with even 2nd grade reading comprehension skills.

Re:Bullion?

[vlm]

Isn't this really just a set of bullion coins, up to and including the fact that they're technically legal tender but you'd have to be out of your mind to actually spend them? Or are they hoping that value to collectors might push the value of these things up even further than the cost of the silver itself?

The value of "legal tender" bullion coins over a private mint, is at least theoretically, the worlds legal forces will treat copies as counterfitting vs simple copyright infringement.

If I took a R2D2 action figure (for the foreigners, "action figure" = "doll for boys") and did some lost wax casting action and sold little $2K gold R2D2s, there is only wimpy copyright law preventing others from gold plating lead and tungsten R2D2s and marketing them as my own product for, say, $1900.

On the other hand, even counterfeiting foreign currency is a quick trip to jail...

Also public mints usually have some law about only minting true dates or something like that. Stamp all the pennies you want, more or less, as long as they're stamped "2011". On the other hand, a private mint could notice that proof grade 1909-S-VDB pennies sell for slightly more than pennies from a 2010 proof set, and there is really nothing stopping a private mint from making a new run of "model 1909-S-VDB psuedopennies".

I am told that a large number of "collectable" coins are manufactured/faked in China. Supposedly most 1909-S-VDB "proof" pennies are fake, but we can't / won't enforce the law. Its more of a "in theory" rather than "in practice" argument.

In summary : At least in theory, public minted coins are less likely to be counterfeit than private mint coinage.

Re:Bullion?

[Millennium]

Um, read my post again: I actually did get that. My point is that while the merchandising aspect is an interesting twist, this really isn't any different from something that lots of countries already do.

Re:Bullion?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

When it comes to commemorative coins there are 2 values for them. You are correct that there is the melt value (the value of the coin) but then there is the collector value as well. The US government does the same thing and is still producing silver dollars as commemorative coins that are actually legal tender some are even are bullion coins as well. This similar to other coinage from such countries as South Africa, Canada, and China. Some of these coins carry a substantial premium above their melt value, others not so much. Even some non legal tender ingots have collector value to them since they are prized for their quality or rarity, the one of these I am most familiar with it the Engelhard American Prospector silver round.

Re:Bullion?

[Nursie]

Well, a bit more than copyright. If yours were sold as solid gold, and then the competitor sold theirs as gold, it could also be fraud.

But you're right, the counterfeiting laws are a lot stronger and a lot more enforced.

Re:Bullion?

[Jesse_vd]

It's different because of the Star Wars characters.... not because of the coins.

Re:Bullion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do they do that? What's the point in labeling a 1oz. America Silver Eagle coin as $1, when silver hasn't been that cheap since the 60s. Just acknowledge that 1 oz. is the only important number on the thing.

Re:Bullion?

[Millennium]

There are apparently legal issues with this sort of thing. In order to be an "investment coin," it must be legal tender in its country of origin at the time it is made.

Re:Bullion?

[gawaino]

In numismatic circles, they are known as NCLT coins, non-circulating legal tender. Not exactly bullion coins because they initially sell for more than just the price of the metal. Depending on the popularity of the design, they may retain a premium for collectors.

Re:Bullion?

[mikkelm]

What happens when DNA breaks?

Re:Bullion?

[flaming error]

You get "cancer", which is like a car getting rusted.

Re:Bullion?

[Samantha Wright]

This is hilariously off-topic, but I'll bite. I guess I can burn the karma for a curious mind.

The cell has many, many different DNA repair mechanisms and backups. For starters, each of the 23 human chromosome pairs is actually RAID 1+1: two copies per pair, and each copy is made out of two complementary strands that contain negative images of each other. If one of these strands gets damaged, it's trivial to repair; all the cell has to do is slough off the bad side and re-copy the good side. This happens extremely often, so the cell has specialized mechanisms for dealing with common anomalies, such as thymine dimers caused by UV light. Sometimes, however, the nucleotides are so damaged that the repairs are incorrect. This is how most UV-triggered mutations are caused, but they're usually very minor.

If a chromosome actually breaks in two, there are two major cases to consider:

1. If the break is in the middle of an important gene, promoter, or operon, then the cell function may be compromised. Usually there are many duplicates, and there's always the other member of the chromosome pair, which is likely to suffice even in the most dire situations.
2. If the break is in between genes in the middle of junk DNA, there will be no immediate effect.

In both cases, however, it is highly likely that the cell will fail the next replication checkpoint. A cell with DNA that's too badly damaged usually chooses to kill itself, in order to protect the rest of the organism from threats like cancer, instead of dividing along its normal pattern. Replication checkpoints are comparable to checksums, but are less thorough and basically amount to "are all of the chromosome pairs unbroken?" In cases where this doesn't happen, the shorter segment is usually forgotten, including all of the genes it carries. When DNA is duplicated (in humans), it's held by a kind of handle in the middle called the kinetochore. Only the fragment that contains the kinetochore will get duplicated.

If the cell damaged is in the germline (a cell that will eventually turn into a sperm or ovum), this fragmentary part may be passed on, and the next generation of children will have what is called a chromosome truncation. These are usually fatal, and those who survive with them tend to have horrible, debilitating diseases. (Incidentally, this is also how the Y chromosome got its shape, but that's because the second copy of the X chromosome in women is inactivated at random and doesn't contribute a whole lot.)

I hope that answered your question. Maybe I should just go ahead and use the journal thing here...

Re:Bullion?

[mikkelm]

I got the gist of it, but I think it's short the necessary car analogies to really make it click. In any case, I'm impressed with the prompt and thorough reply. You certainly follow through on your claims.

Re:Bullion?

[Samantha Wright]

Sadly, the number of contortions necessary to make a viable car analogy would basically obliterate the meaning. I'm happy to help with any missing vocabulary items or concepts necessary to comprehend the actual information, though.

Re:Bullion?

[mingot]

On the other hand, a private mint could notice that proof grade 1909-S-VDB pennies sell for slightly more than pennies from a 2010 proof set, and there is really nothing stopping a private mint from making a new run of "model 1909-S-VDB psuedopennies"

Except that it's counterfeiting and illegal in the US. Law does provide for re-strikes which are stamped with the word "COPY" to be created and distributed, though.

I am told that a large number of "collectable" coins are manufactured/faked in China.

China is churning these out an alarming rate. And they are not stamped with copy. Some of them are very well executed, but an educated collector can generally tell the fake from the real. Additionally, there are a number of 3rd party grading companies and you get authentication along with the grade.

Also, there is no such thing as a 1909-S-VDB proof. Proof is not a grade, it's a method of manufacture. There were no proof coins minted in San Francisco in 1909.

Re:Bullion?

[Yamioni]

But you're right, the counterfeiting laws are a lot stronger and a lot more enforced.

Which really just makes sense. If the government allowed just anyone to spend $5 worth of material and effort to produce a $100 bill then inflation would run out of control and wreck the economy. That and the government gets extremely jealous of anyone doing something better than them; they prefer to retain their monopoly on printing money (literally.) Actually, come to think of it, it's probably a lot more the latter than the former...

Re:Bullion?

[Walkingshark]

It's the complexity of things like this that lead me to believe that the fundamental laws of nature just kind of naturally lead to life, given time and sufficient raw materials. If you leave a big enough puddle of water sitting around long enough eventually something is going to crawl out of it.

Re:Bullion?

[AP31R0N]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numismatics

Re:Bullion?

[Samantha Wright]

Well, you have to leave an entire universe sitting around, and it has to be set up properly going in, but that's the general idea.

Re:Bullion?

[Walkingshark]

What I'm getting at, though, is that with the laws we have here, you don't need anything like the size of even the observable universe. If things this complex can survive (or emerge enough times after being wiped out) and evolve, then they must be extremely common. So common that life must be pretty much everywhere that has puddles of water sitting around coupled with a proper energy source.

Re:Bullion?

[Samantha Wright]

Abiogenesis is a complex enough topic that we still don't know if that's true or not. It certainly seems that, yes, once life got started it was pretty darn good at surviving, but we still don't have answers to basic questions like "how common are small rocky planets with fast-spinning iron cores and nitrogen-based atmospheres?" Further, Earth has undergone a lot of potentially unlikely events: like this, this (which, if true, gave us our iron core), and this. We can't even detect Earth-like exoplanets yet to compare; many of the known exoplanets are so-called "hot jupiters." (Which sounds to me like a euphemism for "failed companion star," but I digress.) We may never fill in enough of the Drake equation to determine how many times life has arisen, if it's arisen at all.

One thing's for sure, though: it hasn't developed far enough to obliterate the observable universe yet. This is a little unfair, as it means we're expecting civilizations further away from us to have developed quicker (so that we can see them with our historical view of distant space) and we're pretty sure that life can't develop until the stars have gone through one or two metal-enriching supernovae (the earliest universe was almost nothing but hydrogen; living organisms require a huge range of transition metal ions to do redox reactions)... so really the safest assumption would be to go off our own figures, and say that anything further than about 4 billion LY away probably hasn't gotten through abiogenesis yet, and we shouldn't even bother with it.

That being said... there are some things about the nature of the periodic table that seem almost too perfect. Most of the non-metals, especially in period 2 (the second row) all have very flexible and useful properties, and carbon, utterly essential to stable life, forms naturally when a star dies. There's also some iffy evidence that biomolecules as complex as glycine and the nucleobases have been found in space. So it's easy to start suspecting that the universe was tuned (either deliberately or by luck over many permutations) to develop Earth-style life—but a better way to look at it, and one that's particularly good at dismissing radical alternative biochemistry hypotheses, is simply that life arose out of that which was most abundantly available, and that is because, regardless of vanishingly tiny probability, it had the most chances to roll the dice.

And that is why bringing up this crap is pretty much the "In Soviet Russia" of biology.

This kind of monstrosity

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes me wish for a quick melting of the polar ice caps.

So how much is Lucas getting for each of them?

[BLKMGK]

As the title says - is Lucas literally making money now?!

Commemerative?

[Baloroth]

Commemorative of what, exactly? Does Niue have anything to do with Star Wars?

And technical question: it looks like they are printing the images in color, which means non-silver inks. How fast will those degrade when the silver tarnishes etc.? Why wouldn't they just use an engraving like most coins, especially for a near-pure silver coin like this? I would be much more tempted to buy it, too. This just looks like a (not so) cheap gimmick.

Re:Commemerative?

[Desler]

Commemorative of the fact that the bank accounts Star Wars nerds have basically been Lucas' ATM for nearly 25 years now?

Re:Commemerative?

[whiteboy86]

> Commemorative of what, exactly?

Nothing, Niue heros moved no coins, so they melted the bullion and struck new ones with Vader, Wookie and Leia. All of a sudden even Slashdot is interested.

Re:Commemerative?

[_Shad0w_]

And technical question: it looks like they are printing the images in color, which means non-silver inks. How fast will those degrade when the silver tarnishes etc.? Why wouldn't they just use an engraving like most coins, especially for a near-pure silver coin like this? I would be much more tempted to buy it, too. This just looks like a (not so) cheap gimmick.

I'm curious about that myself - the NZ mint page for the coins yields no information on the matter.

Re:Commemerative?

[vlm]

And technical question: it looks like they are printing the images in color, which means non-silver inks. How fast will those degrade when the silver tarnishes etc.? Why wouldn't they just use an engraving like most coins, especially for a near-pure silver coin like this? I would be much more tempted to buy it, too. This just looks like a (not so) cheap gimmick.

Coin collectors kind of laugh at painted coins, they're supposed to appeal to the general public, but they even fail at that.

Its a complicated tradeoff. On one hand, they make "coins" look like "toy tokens" which should strongly not appeal to the coin collectors, but should appeal to the pop culture collectors. On the other hand, you never really know whats under the paint, maybe they're fakes. On the other hand, maybe its easy to stamp fakes, and easy to paint fakes, but stamping and painting fakes is pushing it a bit.

Re:Commemerative?

[jellomizer]

Commemoration a movie with top of the line special effect and a mediocre plot, That has chance the thoughts and minds of generations. Which made people believe if they focus enough they could get that remote control from the other end of the couch without getting up. And teach us such important moral lessons like.
Running away from your home to talk to a stranger is a good idea.
Allie yourself with criminals.
Join a religion which only has a few followers.
Do, not think.
Its OK to quit just as long as you get back before your teacher dies.
A 3 foot noisy light saber can stop everything
Bad guys do not have smart bombs.
There are only two sides to things they are either good or bad, no middle ground.

Re:Commemerative?

[kenj0418]

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Re:Commemerative?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, how many followers does a religion need before it's okay to join them? And what about the people who joined before it reached that tipping point? Were they doing something wrong before, but it retroactively became okay afterwards?

Re:Commemerative?

[Yamioni]

So, how many followers does a religion need before it's okay to join them? And what about the people who joined before it reached that tipping point? Were they doing something wrong before, but it retroactively became okay afterwards?

I think the term you are looking for is 'Socially acceptable', not wrong/okay.

This site has rankings for various religions which is a little out of date, but probably not terribly far off. The two at the very bottom, Rastafarianism and Scientology are tentatively 'Socially acceptable' depending on your location, but on average are probably at least tolerated. Rastafarianism more-so than Scientology, mostly because of the age of the religion. So 600 million and 500 million compared to an estimated 5.8 Billion people (in 1997) comes out to 10.3% and 8.6%. I seem to recall there being a post on /. a time back about 7% being the magic number for acceptance of a religion. A little searching tells me my memory sucks and it was about the spread of ideas (close to religion) and the number was in fact 10% (read for yourself.)

So, given what I perceive personally to be the social acceptability of those two religions currently, 10% seems about right. Rastafarians aren't particularly shunned, but don't seem to be gaining much "market share", while Scientologists are currently generally regarded as loons.

Re:Commemerative?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the term you are looking for is 'Socially acceptable', not wrong/okay.

No it isn't, because the person I was responding to was explicitly framing things in moral terms. His list of what he sarcastically called "important moral lessons" included, "Join a religion which only has a few followers", implying that it's somehow inherently wrong to do so.

Re:Commemerative?

[AP31R0N]

3/10

Re:Commemerative?

[Coren22]

Math fail? Rastafarianism and Scientology are in the thousands, not millions, therefore nowhere near 10%, but Shinto at 4 million is .0008% is considered a respected religion.

Re:Commemerative?

[Yamioni]

HAHAHA, shit, more like reading fail, nice catch. I totally missed that the site said thousands and not millions.

Alright, well, in light of that, I have no clue what would make a good tipping point for religion. Religion is nothing more than ideas, so 10% of the world population seems wildly overestimated as required for acceptance and spread. Maybe it more comes down to 10% among the group of people that are actually informed on the topic. I write software for a living, I'm certainly no anthropologist. :-)

Is this a fools day joke?

[sgt scrub]

It isn't December 25th. wtf.

How would this boost tourism...

[swan5566]

when I could just order them from home? I mean, I obviously am not going to go there and spend the coins or something. Perhaps they don't allow overseas orders?

Re:How would this boost tourism...

[dragon-file]

That would make sense. You don't boost tourism by opening 50 online stores.

Re:How would this boost tourism...

[Lunix Nutcase]

How would not allowing overseas orders boost tourism? The point of this is to raise awareness of the island so that people will come. This is basically a huge publicity stunt taking advantage of the popularity of Star Wars to get an almost unheard of island country into the headlines.

Re:How would this boost tourism...

[_Shad0w_]

You can buy them directly from the NZ mint.

Wow, those ads are now on Slashdot!

[hubie]

I thought here I'd escape those late light ads about special issue coins and stamps from little countries. Are these GOLD-plated with 99.99% pure gold?

Re:Wow, those ads are now on Slashdot!

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Well given that it is being minted by an actual real government mint (New Zealand) and not some dodgy place (New York Mint I'm looking at you and your "uncut sheets of $2 bills" that only have 4 bills instead of the full 32) I wouldn't be too worried. If you want to see if something is valid wait for it to show up at a coin shop. The people there are knowledgeable and can spot 99.999% of fakes from a mile away. Personally I wouldn't trust any place that advertises on late night TV or with full page ads in the news paper (yes I still get it) or a magazine but there are some companies that make bullion rounds that are legit and respected in the coin collecting community. They don't advertise on TV of anything like that but are quality outfits (Engelhard and Pamp Suisse are 2 notable ones) that will deliver quality product if you want bullion.

Re:Wow, those ads are now on Slashdot!

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Also you picked a really poor coin as the American Buffalo Coin from the US mint isn't plated but is a pure gold coin. The US mint tends to stay away from the dodgy crap like that as there is a reputation that they need to maintain. Unfortuantly there have been copies offered for sale by dodgy companies that are gold clad so the true American Buffalo coin isn't as highly valued in the market as that the American Gold Eagle Coins are even though the American Gold Eagle coins are only 91.67% (22 Karat).

Re:Wow, those ads are now on Slashdot!

[Anonymous Coward]

You complain about "special issue coins from little countries," and then you link to ... a pure gold coin struck by the United States Mint?

Re:Wow, those ads are now on Slashdot!

[Kalriath]

Aaaaactually, not. The New Zealand Mint is just the legal name of a company that makes bullion coins. Sometimes, they do so under the authority of a government, but they are not in fact contracted to provide minting services to any government nor are they owned by a government. For New Zealand, the actual government mint is the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and government issue commemorative currency is issued by New Zealand Post.

Re:Wow, those ads are now on Slashdot!

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Ok I didn't know that as I mostly deal with US, Canadian, or Mexican, coinage. Now I do wonder about the quality (are they really 999 coins) and if they are similar to companies like the Franklin Mint or the New York Mint.

Move along, nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

These aren't the coins you're looking for.

Get Rich Quick

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like I'm taking a flight to the Pacific.

Step 1: Buy $9,998 in commemorative coins @ $2 each.
Step 2: Fly back to US and melt coins down to silver.
Step 3: Resell @ $117.25 per coin for a total profit of $576,134.75 minus airline expenses.

Early retirement here I come!!!

Re:Get Rich Quick

[Lunix Nutcase]

You can't buy the coins at $2 a piece.

The four-coins-in-a-noisy-case collections will set you back $390.44 (£239.80) each. If that's too rich for your imperial or rebel tastes, you can instead pick up single coins in silver-plated base metal for a mere $19.56 (£12.02) each.

Re:Get Rich Quick

[_Shad0w_]

Except the coins are only being sold in proof sets or as single proof coins. They're never being issued in Niue itself. The only people who will have them are people who have bought them - and the cost of the coins is above the market value of silver.

Re:Get Rich Quick

[bberens]

I'm imagining you trying to get through the US security check with 4,999 coins in your pockets. Also, with the price of carry-on these days you might not quite break even.

The knights who say Ni(ue)

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is more appropriate for 'Knights who say Ni(ue)' commemorative coins...

Touriwhat now?

[Quiet_Desperation]

How does this increase tourism?

Re:Touriwhat now?

[_Shad0w_]

I'm guessing they're theorizing people might go to see Niue, having now actually heard of it.

Re:Touriwhat now?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Yeah, that was all I had. I was wondering if there was more. Actually, I'm wondering if I should add it to my grand "overseas retirement" target list. There was talk in NZ about tuning the whole thing into a retirement village.

Re:Touriwhat now?

[Oswald McWeany]

I heard about it watching the Holy Grail.

We are the knights that say "Niue".

What About a License?

[dammy]

Did they license those characters from Lucas or will there be a pissed off Wookie visiting the island in the near future?

Re:What About a License?

[jklovanc]

Look to the bottom of this page. They are licensed.

Woo!

[LordStormes]

I got the Palpatine coin! And it's got R2-D2 on the other side! Wait... that's not Palpatine... *mulph*

Re:Woo!

[Bob the Super Hamste]

And I don't have any mod points.

Re:Woo!

[SlowMovingTarget]

*mulph*

So that's how you spell that. I will use that from now on, well done.

Re:Woo!

[LordStormes]

IT'S A TRAP!

Vanity stamps & coins

[DrXym]

Pobjoy mint and others do this kind of thing all the time. For example for Harry Potter Isle of Man coins. I expect its an easy way for the mint and the host country to make money because only collectors would buy these things.

In earlier times it used to be commemorative stamps. Islands used to print out sheets of these phoney baloney stamps for collectors. The sheets even had fake post marks printed on the stamps so they couldn't be inadvertently used to post letters with.

These aren't the droids you're looking for..

[Anonymous Coward]

* Slashdot waves hand*"...these aren't the coins you're looking for."
Me: "These aren't the coins I'm looking for...move along, move along"

How much is that in bitcoin?

[istartedi]

How much is that in bitcoin? Are cheesy "collectible" coins the new push on Slashdot? Maybe Slashdot's parent corporation will do a deal with Franklin Mint. Home Shopping Channel, here we come!

Re:How much is that in bitcoin?

[gman003]

Are cheesy "collectible" coins the new push on Slashdot?

The Slashdot Coin Collection - now featuring Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and more! Now with limited-edition $2.56 Donal Knuth coin!

Re:How much is that in bitcoin?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Fortunately or unfortunately it would take and infinite amount of Bitcoins to acquire one of these bullion coins as the people who buy bullion as a value store are the ones who want to have a real tangible asset and not some random bits on a computer. Also thank you for reminding me about the Franklin Mint and the cheesy crap they sell which is similar to that which is sold by the New York Mint. I had forgotten about the Franklin Mint until you brought them up. These coins seem to be similar to the collectable coins sold by the US Mint. In all actuality these will probably have a value similar to other non US bullion coins like the Silver Canadian Maple Leaf, Chinese Panda or other such Bullion coins minted by governments.

Re:How much is that in bitcoin?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

If /. really wanted to produce and sell them it could contact a company like Paridise Mint or Sunshine Mint and have some 999 silver rounds cast. Now /. couldn't have actual dollar amounts put on them so maybe they could be called mod point tokens.

Re:How much is that in bitcoin?

[tompaulco]

Just to prove you wrong I would go and sell two of my bitcoins to acquire one of the silver coins and have change left over. But frankly, I'd rather just have the bitcoins.

Hey that's a two headed coin?!?!

[ciderbrew]

Are you saying the Queen looks like Yoda? To the Tower...

They say $2 on them so that when they are imported

[Anonymous Coward]

They say $2 on them so that when they are imported you only have to pay taxes on $2 worth of coins.

Why ruin the coin with the Queens head

[Oswald McWeany]

Until the Queen appears in a blockbuster film wielding a light sabre... I don't think she belongs on the coin... even if she is a member of the darkside Royal family.

... Charles, I am your fa... errm Mother

Re:Why ruin the coin with the Queens head

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Probably because there is a legal requirement, like in most of the Commonwealth countries, that the head of state must appear on the legal tender.

Re:Why ruin the coin with the Queens head

[Oswald McWeany]

Is there any law saying she is not to be depicted wearing a wookie costume?

Re:Why ruin the coin with the Queens head

[thirty-seven]

Probably because there is a legal requirement, like in most of the Commonwealth countries, that the head of state must appear on the legal tender.

I know you didn't claim otherwise, but I wanted to point out that Queen Elizabeth II is not the head of state of most countries in the Commonwealth. Of the 54 independent countries in the Commonwealth, she is head of state of 16 of them. (A majority of the Commonwealth countries, 33 of them, are republics.)

Also, Niue is not technically a Commonwealth country, because it is not a fully independent sovereign state - it is in free association with New Zealand, which provides defence and conducts foreign affairs for Niue.

But yes, for these coins, the Queen is on them because Niue citizens are under the sovereignty of New Zealand and thus the Queen as Queen of New Zealand.

waiting for ....

[Anonymous Coward]

The lawsuit to come.

Re:waiting for ....

[Lunix Nutcase]

For what? Producing licensed coins?

©2011 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All rights reserved.
Produced in cooperation with S&A Partners, an official licensee of Lucasfilm

Better than Liberia

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it's better than the 9/11 commemorative coins put out by Liberia. With "real silver" from the site. Plating of course, so there's no significant silver there.

Way - No Way - Niue!

[Megahard]

Some facts about Niue

• It makes a substantial amount of money selling its .nu domain, which apparently means "new" in some European languanges.
• The entire country has free wifi and all students have a OLPC machine.
• The coastline is limestone cliffs and caves, good for eco-tourism but not for most tourists that want to lay on a beach. If you want to go plan to spend some time as there's only one flight a week.

Some will be pre-tarnished on one entire side

[SixAndFiftyThree]

The Darth Vader coins.

Actually, some guy did just that...

[PaulBu]

Google for Robert Kahre legal saga.

First attempt to prosecute him resulted in testifying high-level IRS representative saying that he does not know if gold eagles should be reported at face value or market value for IRS purposes, would have to consult -- of course if he did not know, how defendant was supposed to know? ;-)

They finally got him ( http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=23766 ) -- on reporting his income selectively depending on what he wanted to achieve!

Paul B.

Re:Actually, some guy did just that...

[flaming error]

Wow, great story. Thanks!

In the case of most of us, getting paid in eagles could only make sense for take-home pay. Taxes and Pre-tax deductions have to be accounted for in Monopoly money.

Even then, if we traded any eagles for paper money we'd get hit for it in capital gains like Kahre.

Methinks that somewhere along the line a black/gray market will emerge where goods and services can be bought for eagles and bullion.

Re:Actually, some guy did just that...

[PaulBu]

Yeah, interesting story, is not it?

Methinks that somewhere along the line a black/gray market will emerge where goods and services can be bought for eagles and bullion.

I am wondering if there is a black market equivalent of Rule 34? ;) If not, can I be credited for that meme: "If someone think that there could be a black market in something, it's pretty probably that it already exists!".

Though, I am sure that it is happening right now, maybe more in silver coins than in gold for smaller transactions, even pre-60s quarters and such, taken at their weight, not face denomination.

Another related fascinating story: apparently even current US nickels (unlike all other regular coins!) are about 6 cents in base metal value, and it used to be way more than that within last five years (see bottom charts here: http://www.coinflation.com/coins/1946-2007-Jefferson-Nickel-Value.html).

And no, in case you ask, I am not in the habit of hoarding nickels! :)

Paul B.

in your pants!

[Anonymous Coward]

that's what she said!

One Hour

[Anonymous Coward]

Mission accomplished. I just wasted an hour learning about Niue and 1750 inhabitants.

Copyright Violation? Intellectual Property?

[popo]

Why not just print up some DVD's and sell those!

Queen of England

[thirty-seven]

The coins, which will show a Star Wars character on one side and the Queen of England on the other...

There hasn't been a Queen of England since 1707 when England ceased to exist as an independent kingdom. Referring to her in this story as the "Queen of the United Kingdom" or the "British Queen" would have been a much better way to let most readers know who is on the obverse of the coins without being completely wrong as "Queen of England" is.

And, technically, it is the Queen of New Zealand who is on these coins, because Niue is in "free association with New Zealand and, although it is not part of the country of New Zealand, it is part of the Realm of New Zealand.

I finally get the joke...

[wjsteele]

1. Buy coins at face value.
2. Sell coins at content value.
3. ...
4. Profit!

You get it??? 3 is irrelavant!!! It's awesome and I finally understand every single other post that includes it!

Bill

Re:I finally get the joke...

[Anonymous Coward]

3 is "Taxes".

Niue on the niues :)

[chilvence]

I've been to Niue, I recommend the ice cream shop slash yacht club... Say hi to Mamata if you drop by :)

Not illegal to counterfeit pennies.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000485—-000-.html

"Anyone who manufactures a counterfeit U.S. coin in any denomination above five cents is subject to the same penalties as all other counterfeiters. Anyone who alters a genuine coin to increase its numismatic value is in violation of Title 18, Section 331 of the United States Code, which is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to five years, or both. "

NZ Mint Security

[MAurelius]

I went to the site, added two sets of the 999 silver coins to my Cart. Went to pay for it, and noticed the website was NOT secure. No "https" in the address line. This NZ Mint appears to be completely clueless about security OR the entire thing is a giant SCAM. It's actually hilarious: the place in NZ that MAKES THE MONEY does not know how to secure an online order form. Maybe they don't have criminals down there? BUYER BEWARE. I canceled my order, and my 11-yr-old will never know what he almost got for his birthday. Did anyone else notice this? I'm in the US using Chrome 13.0.782.112 (the latest) on OS X Snow Leopard, fully updated. (Chrome is very clear when a secure page has been loaded)

Not just Star Wars but Transformers too

[Skywings]

Another pacific island nation Tuvalu has a set of proof Transformer coins. Again like the star wars coins, these are made out of silver but stamped with some token face value. The coins portraying the characters of Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Megatron.

Re:Not just Star Wars but Transformers too

[Skywings]

Just forgot to add you can get them from the Perth Mint. The Perth Mint works out of Perth Australia so for those carbon footprint conscious out there, just be aware its being shipped from one of the most remote cities in the world.