22 pound Olympic Gold Coin is biggest ever!!!! 7" diameter ...29 made!!
Goldbully
Posts: 17,990 ✭✭✭✭✭
Wish I could see the whole coin, but this will have to do for now!!! 
It could double as a shot put, but it's worth a little too much to chuck in the dirt.
A 22-pound gold coin commemorating the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing is waiting in Burnsville for someone to plunk down $1 million for a piece of history.
Now, if you're a big fan of the Olympics, you could fly to Beijing, stay for a week, watch the Games live and buy a T-shirt for considerably less.
But a million dollars for a coin that isn't even old?
It turns out, a solid-gold coin that weighs as much as a 1-year-old child doesn't come along every day.
The coin released by the China Mint is the biggest Olympic coin made to date, said Douglas Mudd, a curator at the American Numismatic Association money museum.
"Twenty-two pounds — that's a lot of gold," he said.
At present, Mudd said, "The coin market is very hot. We're seeing record prices at practically every auction."
Gold is selling for about $928 an ounce, which would make the jumbo coin that Burnsville-based GovMint.com is selling worth about $300,000 melted down. (Precious metals are measured in troy ounces; the 22-pound coin is roughly 321 troy ounces.)
Plus, the coin — with the Beijing 2008 Games logo on one side and an image of a Chinese temple towering above Olympic athletes on the other — is one of only 29 issued, and the only one released for sale in the United States. Seven inches in diameter, it comes in an ornate carved box of African Blackwood with a 35-pound carved stone dragon perched on top.
"There is certainly a history of people paying more than $1 million for certain rare coins," said Jay Beeton, the numismatic association's marketing director.
So how did this particular coin end up in a nondescript office complex in Burnsville?
The parent company of GovMint.com, Asset Marketing Services, has marketed coins, jewelry and watches directly to consumers since 1984, growing to about $100 million in sales and 200 employees. The company's founder, Nicholas Bruyer, previously had worked on product marketing for the Olympics. GovMint.com sold some coins connected to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. But what probably got the China Mint's attention was the company's biggest score to date: $1.5 million for a pair of rare gold prototype coins that were never released by the United States Mint.
The Beijing Olympics coin arrived at company offices a couple of weeks ago, but GovMint.com isn't planning any big public displays. The company is promoting the coin online (along with more affordable items) and has contacted collectors all over the country.
Bruyer expects his $1 million Beijing Olympic coin to sell before the Games begin in August. It will be shipped to its new owner in an armored car.
Olympic coins date back almost as far as the Olympics Games, said the ANA's Mudd. In the early fifth century B.C., the Greeks decided to issue coins that visitors to the city could use during the event. In the modern era, coins were first issued in connection with the 1952 Helsinki Games.
The Beijing Olympics coin has no value as currency. But then, you probably wouldn't want to lug it around, anyway.
Nicole Garrison-Sprenger can be reached at 651-228-5580.
By The Numbers
Size: 7 inches in diameter
Weight: 22 pounds, not including presentation box
Number made: 29
Available in the U.S.: 1
Issued by: China Mint
Marketed by: GovMint.com
Price: $1 million
Link
It could double as a shot put, but it's worth a little too much to chuck in the dirt.
A 22-pound gold coin commemorating the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing is waiting in Burnsville for someone to plunk down $1 million for a piece of history.
Now, if you're a big fan of the Olympics, you could fly to Beijing, stay for a week, watch the Games live and buy a T-shirt for considerably less.
But a million dollars for a coin that isn't even old?
It turns out, a solid-gold coin that weighs as much as a 1-year-old child doesn't come along every day.
The coin released by the China Mint is the biggest Olympic coin made to date, said Douglas Mudd, a curator at the American Numismatic Association money museum.
"Twenty-two pounds — that's a lot of gold," he said.
At present, Mudd said, "The coin market is very hot. We're seeing record prices at practically every auction."
Gold is selling for about $928 an ounce, which would make the jumbo coin that Burnsville-based GovMint.com is selling worth about $300,000 melted down. (Precious metals are measured in troy ounces; the 22-pound coin is roughly 321 troy ounces.)
Plus, the coin — with the Beijing 2008 Games logo on one side and an image of a Chinese temple towering above Olympic athletes on the other — is one of only 29 issued, and the only one released for sale in the United States. Seven inches in diameter, it comes in an ornate carved box of African Blackwood with a 35-pound carved stone dragon perched on top.
"There is certainly a history of people paying more than $1 million for certain rare coins," said Jay Beeton, the numismatic association's marketing director.
So how did this particular coin end up in a nondescript office complex in Burnsville?
The parent company of GovMint.com, Asset Marketing Services, has marketed coins, jewelry and watches directly to consumers since 1984, growing to about $100 million in sales and 200 employees. The company's founder, Nicholas Bruyer, previously had worked on product marketing for the Olympics. GovMint.com sold some coins connected to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. But what probably got the China Mint's attention was the company's biggest score to date: $1.5 million for a pair of rare gold prototype coins that were never released by the United States Mint.
The Beijing Olympics coin arrived at company offices a couple of weeks ago, but GovMint.com isn't planning any big public displays. The company is promoting the coin online (along with more affordable items) and has contacted collectors all over the country.
Bruyer expects his $1 million Beijing Olympic coin to sell before the Games begin in August. It will be shipped to its new owner in an armored car.
Olympic coins date back almost as far as the Olympics Games, said the ANA's Mudd. In the early fifth century B.C., the Greeks decided to issue coins that visitors to the city could use during the event. In the modern era, coins were first issued in connection with the 1952 Helsinki Games.
The Beijing Olympics coin has no value as currency. But then, you probably wouldn't want to lug it around, anyway.
Nicole Garrison-Sprenger can be reached at 651-228-5580.
By The Numbers
Size: 7 inches in diameter
Weight: 22 pounds, not including presentation box
Number made: 29
Available in the U.S.: 1
Issued by: China Mint
Marketed by: GovMint.com
Price: $1 million
Link
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Russ, NCNE
<< <i>What about the 100 Kilo Canadian Maple Leaf? >>
Largest Olympic coin.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
<< <i>
<< <i>What about the 100 Kilo Canadian Maple Leaf? >>
Largest Olympic coin. >>
Ah.
To support LordM's European Trip, click here!
<< <i>It isn't the biggest gold coin ever made.
Russ, NCNE >>
Maybe its the biggest one made for circulation.........
<< <i>Here ya go...
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
--Severian the Lame
out with a 500 pound gold coin. Then I
am gonna get PCGS to slab it.
Camelot
<< <i>That looks like a bunch of people running away from a rampaging godzilla. >>
that's more of a japan thing.
60 years into this hobby and I'm still working on my Lincoln set!
<< <i>That looks like a bunch of people running away from a rampaging godzilla.
<< <i> less than 1.2 regular ounces, advouris ounces? >>
Avoirdupois
And from wikipedia:
The word avoirdupois is from French and Middle English (Anglo-French) avoir de pois, "goods of weight" or "goods sold by weight", from Old French aveir de peis, literally "goods of weight" (Old French aveir, "property, goods", also "to have", comes from the Latin habere, "to have, to hold, to possess property"; de = "from", cf. Latin; peis = "weight", from Latin pensum). This term originally referred to a class of merchandise: aveir de peis, "goods of weight", things that were sold in bulk and were weighed on large steelyards or balances. Only later did it become identified with a particular system of units used to weigh such merchandise. The imaginative orthography of the day and the passage of the term through a series of languages (Latin, Anglo-French and English) has left many variants of the term, such as haberty-poie and haber de peyse. (The Norman peis became the Parisian pois. In the 17th century de was replaced with du.)
<< <i>A million dollars for $300K worth of bullion? And some of you complain about the US Mint's premium!
And we thought Coin Vault was bad ?
I wish luck my best superior collector to in many happy days. Prease, Happy Enjoy.
No Flied Lice and No Soup for you !
Signed ,
Hung Orbs
P.S. Out to Dry
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
<< <i>A million dollars for $300K worth of bullion? >>
I wonder they will sell for in a few years in the after market. Melt?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire