As crazy as it seems just three months into the Year of the Goat/Sheep, coins for next years Year of the Monkey starting on 08 February, are already appearing. We’ve seen, but not yet covered, at least half a dozen lunar releases, but these new coins from Perth-based producer Treasures of Oz are the first of the big guns to debut. Their main range of reverse-proof coins first hit the market back in 2013 in the Year of the Snake, but really took off the following year when they even produced a true bullion version of 300,000 mintage and struck by the Sunshine Mint in the United States. In addition, numerous other variants have joined the range including antiqued, coloured and gilded, along with complimentary designs.

For the Lunar Monkey, the core range remains identical. There’s a 50k mintage reverse-proof, and limited mintage antique, proof, coloured and gilded variants. A tiny 0.5g minigold coin will follow shortly after. On a strictly personal level, I think the design is beautiful and I can imagine sitting here a year from now complimenting this on being one of the five best designs to mark the lunar calendar. Given the sheer breadth of choice, as you can clearly see from our huge Goat Superguide, that’s no mean feat. What finish you prefer isn’t a problem because there’s almost everything to choose from. The artwork is super clean with only the date inscription being placed on the reverse face, everything else on the obverse where it belongs. Issued for Tokelau, the obverse is similar to previous years. I’d imagine the Perth Mint will struggle to top these.

Just for a bit of fun, I’ve taken the Treasures of Oz art images of the designs (actual images are not yet available but coming very shortly), and mocked them up into coins. To be very clear, these are AgAuNEWS mockups and not Treasures of Oz, so accuracy isn’t to be considered. We’ll publish the true actual coin images when we get them. Our images are watermarked to distinguish them from the official ones and are on the right.

The Playful in Bamboo coin is another great design and it maintains a healthy diameter despite being half the weight of the main range. Of special note is the Mirror Monkeys coin, which despite sticking at an ounce in weight, is a huge 65mm in diameter. Struck at the Mint of Norway, it’s the only one not done by B H Mayer in Germany. We don’t yet know if there will be a bullion version as Treasures of Oz now have a fish-themed series now on its second release.

You can buy from the mints own webstore (blue button at bottom of article), but they’re not up yet.