A most disappointing purchase from the New Zealand Mint

zeebob

I bought the coin below (most disappointing).


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ColinCMR

Is it a political statement or target marketing?

WillieBoyd2

I don't see where it says "New Zealand" on the coin.

Sapyx

New Zealand isn't big enough to have it's own government-owned mint. The "New Zealand Mint" is a private mint, like Perth Mint in Australia, only smaller. Website.

This coin was struck in the name of Niue, a New Zealand dependent state.

What do you find disappointing about it, zeebob?

SaorAlba

Notice the striations on QEII - that would chaff me.

trozau

You must have been drawn by something enough to buy the coin. Surely you did not buy it not knowing what it looks like.

ASUtodd

More than likely he saw it on the mint site, thought it looked nice and ordered it... like anyone else... More than likely he didn't have access to the coin before buying it.... Sometimes things look a lot better on the internet than they do in person... I can see why he might be disappointed..

zeebob

I saw the coin in World Coin News, then on the New Zealand Mint's site. The image available was an "artistic rendition."

1st, I broke my own rule - "don't by coins with crap on them." I don't buy colorized coins, but after exchanging emails with the mint, I was convinced these were top notch photo-realistic colorations.

What I don't like is -

1 - the colorized region is pixalated. I don't know what printing process they use, but it looks bad in hand and bad in a camera (but the artistic rendition on their site looks good).

2 - the overall frosting and fields and design give the coin an overall similar appearance of a key fob.

3 - the stripes on the Queens neck bug me. They could get the fields clean, but the primary obverse device is poorly made. Dunno if it is a finger print or a finger print on the die. Either way, it is disappointing. QA does not appear to be a strong suit at the New Zealand mint.

I bought it because I have family ties to both New Zealand (yes I know the mint is private) and the PRC. Besides Niue is cool - I had to look it up so I learned something. What I liked in the design was the dragon, the astronaut (taekonaut) and the Olympic flame. The symbolism is nice - ancient to space age and an up and comer on the world stage.

All said and done, the project cost me something like $98 USD for about $18 in silver. In my mind, I have just filed the NZ Mint with the Franklin mint as crapsellers.

Here is the image available from the seller:


Here is a photo of a cheap souvineer medal that I picked up at the airport a year or so ago. It is base metal and is of the same key fob quality.