ANA Gold Panda Medals
Zoins
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I follow ANA medals and one interesting thing I've noticed is that there are many gold (and silver) ANA medals with Chinese characters for all kinds of ANA events. In terms of marketing for the hobby as mentioned by Roger in another thread, it seems that these would be pretty exciting. Certainly their prices indicate excitement. Anyone know about these medals?
- who is heading these up at the ANA?
- which mint is striking these for the ANA?
- are there similar gold medals in other languages?
Some nice things about these:
- they are slabbed by PCGS
- the play on words with ANAheim, ANA being in caps
- enough confidence in the medals that there's no gold fineness / weight on them
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Usually the medals come from the host club. I guess it could be that they were sponsored by the Chinese mint,
Ask the ANA or the host club is the best recommendation.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
I have 2 and they came in a capitol like holder. (older ones)
The medal pictured is a gold "Friendship Panda" that was made by Shanghai Mint Co., and was available to purchase at the ANA show on a lottery basis. I think if you bought one of the numbered 1 oz. silver ones, you were entered in a drawing for an option to buy one of the gold ones. Not sure how many there were -- maybe 125? The one pictured above is number 35.
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It sounds like a fun and exciting promotion. The medal itself looks very nice. I like the composition of the Hollywood sign with the Grizzly and Panda bears. The ANA lantern on the reverse also looks nicely done. Seems like a number of these went to ANA officials. Congrats to ANA for working with the Shanghai Mint to pull this off.
I like the individual numbering on these. Very impressive that #63, PCGS 81795786, sold for a best offer of $11,500.00 on a price of $13,288. It's also nice that PCGS would assign a coin number, 612607, and create a custom insert. I just wish they did a TrueView or CoinFacts photo now.
It's nice that these have low mintage, high price, are gold and from the ANA. From a collecting perspective, it's promising to see the high demand for these ANA medals.
Here is info from the COA.
I was there at the show when they were released. You couldn't just buy them... you had to buy a silver version, then get entered in a "raffle" (probably rigged) then you could buy one if you "won"
Orginal price was $1,888 for one coin, gold 1 oz, mintage of 125, they will come way down in price
Wow... expensive.... Although, I would expect it to come down in price due to the limited collector base... Cheers, RickO
Insert should have stated the 0.999 gold fineness....
As the current president of one of the host clubs of the 2016 Anaheim ANA show (Numismatic Association of Southern California), I can confirm that the host clubs had nothing to do with these coins.
At the show, I saw that a certain number of silver coins were sold each day at the show (I think it was only 100 coins per day). The first day, it didn't seem like too big of a deal, but after that there was a mad rush for these coins on the floor each day... haven't seen anything like it since the 2014 gold Kennedy Halves in Chicago.
I believe the 1 oz. silver coins were being sold for $99 each. One or more of the modern coin dealers hired many of the YN ANA pages to stand in line to buy coins for them (something the pages are not allowed to do!). Several of the kids made a profit of $100/coin that they waited to buy, so they didn't seem to care about the rules much!
I think that they were advertising a mintage of 1000 coins, but only about half were available at the show (and none had serial numbers under 250 - those were reserved supposedly). But after the show it looks like 2000 were minted of the 1 oz. variety, so many (perhaps most) of these coins were never in Anaheim.
I have also seen 50g silver versions on the market after the show. I saw no one actually buy any of the 12 oz. silver versions of this coin or any of the gold coins at the show, though I did see a few at the table they were being sold. I would guess that very few of those were sold at the show and most of these pieces were never at the Anaheim ANA show.
I bought a few of the 1 oz. silver versions of the medal. I like the design and they seem to be very well made.
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Apparently 175 were also struck in copper with some slabbed by PCGS and ATS. Here's one that I ran across:
Seems like someone is milking this one for all that it's worth and then some! It's a cool looking piece so I wouldn't doubt if more new versions keep popping up in the months and years to come.
I wonder how much money the ANA is getting from these? I wonder if the ANA got any money at all for even the initial production/sale of these pieces?
Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 448
I hope the ANA is getting part of the action too. It seems like a number of the gold ones went to ANA officials and given that they are in the $8-$15k range, they may be doing okay.
It's exciting that these ANA medals seem to have some collector interest and premium.
I wonder if Martin Weiss, ANA Life Member and founder of Panda America, is involved with or knows about these and other ANA Panda medals.
I just found out that he's the China Panda Coin Ambassador.
@Zoins.... that is an attractive bi-metallic coin.... thanks for showing us... Cheers, RickO
Just ran across some more information on the 1991 Anaheim pieces.
It looks like they are made for Champion Hong Kong Auctions, an authorized dealer for both PCGS and ATS in China founded by Michael Chou.
They are made by the Shanghai Mint and designed by Yu Min. The following is from Mintage World:
A few years back, china stopped making 1 toz pandas and started strictly on full grams. I do not have confidence that is 31.1 instead of 30g.
They also use 99.9% instead of 99.99%(the gold standard right now)
No thanks.
They are offered in the $10k range so I don't think people are too focused on the exact bullion content with these.
Wow. Just found out this medal comes as a 12oz silver as well. This seems to be a pretty well rounded ANA medal effort.
As I understand the business situation, ANA licensed name and logo to a Chinese medal manufacturer, who then marketed and sold the medals with ANA cooperation for a percentage of gross sales. The items were never "ANA issues" or anything like that or like the special 3-coin ANA sets created for ANA by the US Mint in 1976.
I like them very much, but cannot justify spending so much over spot. Maybe when/if they come down in
price I would love to have one.
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I'm sure there's some kind of official ANA connection like you mention, but I'd still love to know who's actually responsible for making these. It seems like minimally the ANA staff who received these free should know?
I'm a big fan of ANA medals, but have noted that many of them aren't very collectible, in that they don't have high premiums and PCGS doesn't slab them. I'm interested in these because I like the design, but also because they resell for high prices and are slabbed by our hosts. Seems like something is being done right with these to generate some kind of secondary market collector interest.
But -- do "high prices" equate with "secondary market interest?"
A bunch of them have sold on the secondary market so it seems like there’s at least some interest.
Interesting. I wonder why availability is so limited. I've not observed much interesting in ANA medals, as you mentioned, so what is supporting prices. Also, where is the rest of B.D.Cooper's ransom money?
Those things are just bullion gold.
Also note, that having no stated denomination, these will never be listed in a 'coin' catalog.
If you have money burning a hole in your pockets and if you gotta have some action, buy something else much closer to melt.
Availability might be limited to match the number of collectors. I’m guessing prices are being supported by a combination of limited mintage and being part of the ANA Panda series. There are many ANA Panda medals over the years and they seem to go for several times melt. I’m sure PCGS slabbing with a PCGS coin number helps as well. That’s probably as important as, or more important than, being in another coin catalog.
People who collect these don’t treat them as bullion. ANA Panda gold medals tend to go for several times melt. As an ANA medal fan, it’s a pretty impressive collector base, even if they don’t seem to post on these forums.
I’m also generally fascinated by gold medals (no denomination or weight). Searching Heritage for “gold medal” tends to turn up a lot of interesting items, at least for me.
@Zoins
1). Historic gold medals and these Chinese puppies are two completely different things.
2). As a forty year plus member of the ANA, I can see that the ANA would be total dead meat today except for the Keith Bequest. Perhaps these gold pandas may serve someday as a reminder of the fall of the ANA.
@BillDugan1959
I have the nearly 60 year old 1960 ANA convention gold medal.
Think positive
@Zoins I struggle with the moral dilemma whether it is worse to deceive one's own self, or whether it is worse to deceive others.
Don’t struggle, do research. If one doesn’t follow realized prices, it may be easy to deceive oneself into thinking the ANA Panda gold medals trade at bullion value. Take a look and you might be surprised at what you see.
As for the non-Panda ones like my 1960 ANA Boston convention gold medal, I’m under no misconception that these have a lot of demand. I simply like it and buy what I like.
The discrepancy is why I’m interested in the collector interest in the ANA Panda medals vs. the ANA non-Panda medals.
Wonderful things to sell, poor things to buy.
Premiums on modern stuff/junk can evaporate overnight, and these aren't even coins.
Modern aftermarkets tend to collapse as the next modern item is rolled out.
Many of the the ANA Panda gold medals sell for high prices years afterwards. A reason is the low mintages mentioned above. This is very different than say a lot of US Mint NCLT coins, which are listed in many coin catalogs, but sell for very little over melt in the modern aftermarket. Additionally, a lot of US classic gold coins sell for little over melt.
Are ANA Panda gold medals an area you follow or are you making general comments? You don’t mention specifics so I’m wondering if it’s the latter.
@Zoins I struggle with the moral dilemma whether it is worse to deceive one's own self, or whether it is worse to deceive others.
Don’t struggle, do research
Education will prevent deception.
@BillDugan1959 Here's a reference point to assist.
The 12 ounce silver medal I posted above is currently at auction on Heritage with 10 days to go. I was going to hold off on posting the link, but I think it's instructive. Let's see how close it sells to bullion value.
It has a bullion value of $172.32, or 12 x $14.36, the spot price for silver. With 10 days to go on Heritage, it's at $1,500.00 (including BP). HA has given it an estimate of $2,500 - $3,500. Let's follow it here:
https://coins.ha.com/itm/china/world-coins/china-people-s-republic-silver-proof-ana-12-ounce-medal-2016-pr69-ultra-cameo-ngc-/a/3068-30370.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515
Although Heritage doesn't mention it, the COA mentions it has a mintage of 125, which celebrates the 125th anniversary of the ANA. The one below is from another piece.
It's just bullion, very recent bullion with no meaningful price history.
Thinking that any connection to the ANA helps is also very sad. The ANA is a sad, sick organization.
Pay more for this junk and lose your money.
With that point of view, no PM medal or modern may satisfy you, however, ANA Pandas in general go back much further than this. If you’re interested in understanding this market, some research will show you how older pieces fare in the secondary market.
The “it’s just bullion” adage seems to affect classic coins like the St. Gardens in low/mid unc grades more. Do you consider them very recent too, say compared to ancients?
One sad part of the ANA is little interest in their medals so far, aside from the Pandas, so I’m thinking the Panda connection may help the ANA more than the other way around. This thread is to highlight a positive, so please try to look on the bright side of things
Update
A NGC MS70 UCAM with 1 oz gold just sold for $2,760.00
https://coins.ha.com/itm/china/china-people-s-republic-gold-proof-125th-anniversary-ana-anaheim-show-1-ounce-commemorative-show-panda-2016-pr70-ultra-cameo-ngc-/a/232011-62234.s?ic2=mytracked-lotspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyTrackedLots-101116