#coins

pandamonium's constant harping about Feng Yunming is 100% justified, just perhaps not for the reasons he gives.

He's almost always right, and people dismiss him because he's not good at explaining why.

Feng Yunming and Chen Jian are the most popular artists that I can think of off the top of my head without researching it better.

Well, if art pricing is realistically a possibiltiy, then it probably makes sense to start buying the work of particular China mint artists.

There are other famous artists too, and I've been focusing on the ones that designed the hand engraved coins.

Yeah, Feng Yunming and Chen Jian are big names. Also Yu Min for pandas

pandamonium loves Feng Yunming's art. I like Chen Jian and the artists that did the hand engraved coins.

This is a perfect example of a case where "buy what you like" is once again excellent investment advice.

It's pretty bizarret that such a simple thing could work, but in the coin market, it does.

I like some of Chen Jian's work, but not all. He's done a lot of diferent pieces. I really like some of his recent large medals

Did you see the list of artists for the hand engraved coins?

The artists that went off on their own to found their own SUCCESSFUL coin studios are probably good candidates for art investing.

As is typical for art, the earliest works tend to be the most predictable as valuable.

I disagree with pandamonium about older being better, but for the coins he's buying, it actually IS better.

There's the early works, the masterpieces, and the obscure stuff with interesting histories - those are easy targets for investing.

For art investing.

I decided not to buy Feng Yunming and most of the other artist's stuff. Instead I have my investments in the hand engraved coins, and I have Chen Jian 1980 silver God of Longevity because it's related to those.

Some of Chen Jian's best work (in my opinion) is his recent large art medallions. Culturally important stuff, like lunars, great classical Chinese novels, plays, famous philosophers, etc. Unfortunately, these are not all minted by offiicla mints. They are somewhat rare to very rare, though. Any thoughts on the investment potential for these?

I would avoid them. There might be gems there, but I would want to know exactly why one of them stands out from the others.

Art rises in value most reliably after an artist dies. For an artist that worked for the mint, his mint art "died" when he left, so the "mintage" is fixed. For art that is still in production, it's usually impossible to choose the best investment because the artist is still producing.

However, being prolific is one fundamental thing that helps ensure an artist's works become valuable.

So, the fact he's still producing and still selling means he has a large fan base that will be impressed by a nice collection, and interested in obtaining the best works for their own collections.

What about an artist who passes and worked for private mints after retiring from the government mint? Would the private stuff have good value?

Passes? You mean dies?

Maybe, but it's absolutely not guaranteed.

Privately minted stuff needs something more to elevate it above the officially minted stuff.

With that "something more", the officially minted stuff can't be beat.

Feng Yunming seems interesting, but I haven't gotten into those. His work is not officially minted, if I recall.

Right.

If I remember correctly, it was semi-official somehow.

pandamonium might know more.

It's so hard to predict, I'm going 100% exclusively with the officially minted stuff for now.

That's another reason why I'm overlooking Feng Yunming, despite the fact I'm sure pandamonium is right about him.

No matter what happens, it's pretty likely that the official stuff will rise in value before the private stuff, so there's no rush.

Later, the game might change.

When I first started investing and writing articles about the Chinese coins, I advised people to avoid non-fiat. Later, someone asked me why now I'm telling people to invest in non-fiat. It's simply because the fiat was the first to go up. I made my money, and now I'm investing in the non-fiat.

I'm a long term investor, but I never say no to short term profits.

Those short term profits are what help me stay ahead of the market, so my wealth will grow as fast as the market does, or faster.

It keeps me in the game, even when I'm collecting coins that would normally be completely out of reach with my modest income.

so, you're saying that someday, after official coins have skyrocketed, in price, you might recommend people buy privately minted ones? :)

Right!

It just depends on what happens then.

For now, we know the officially minted coins have good investment fundamentals. For the privately minted ones, we don't even know what fundamentals are even important yet (or at least I haven't written any articles that talk about it yet)

ok, those should be good articles. If one can identify such fundamentals for the privately minted ones (if they do exist), that could be a figurative gold mine, given the hyper low mintages of some of them

Yes, that's true. If art pricing happens, there will be plenty of money to push those prices up too.

For now, the market is too immature, and there's barely enough money in the market to support prices of the official coins.

There are a lot of official coins with hyper-low mintages too. Like the 2013 brass panda 1st panda expo, with a mintage of 18.

Or the copper version, with a mintage of 23.

Both are on ebay right now. I think there's more than 1 of them too.

Official, but I forgot who the artist was.

In any case, the artwork is fascinating in its own right. The 2013 design has the panda doing a human gesture, which is unusual for panda art. The 2015 design was ripped-off for another coin that is much more valuable, but has a higher mintage!

True, but those are much more expensive. Some private minted ones are almost that rare, but far cheaper. But, as you say, that is much more uncertain when they might appreciate in value

Yes, and what they're doing is high volume production to make up for the low mintages.

That's how they're making their money.

So many types means there needs to be something to make one ofthem stand out as special, or they all just get lost in the noise.

Unless, of course, you can afford to collect them all, and for some reason they're not too numerous.

This is a good example of why "buy what you like" actually works.

The panda expos are nice--I always thought the design was actually better than most of the standard panda series.

If you're a typical collector in most ways, being overwhelmed by the quantity of choices will naturally steer you away from things that won't appeal to other buyers.

Yes, they are.

I bought the 2013 brass and copper ones.

They're the keys.

Did you see my recent writings about those?

I compared them to the 2015 moon festival pandas, if I remember correctly.

The panda expos stand out for many reasons, so they're obviously good investments to anyone that has that information.

I didn't mention the quality of the artwork though.

Yeah, at some point I did. Those are good ones for sure. Could take a while to really catch on, tho

Nor the anthropomorphic uniqueness of them.

True, but I think they'll catch on before many other coins do, which is why I didn't waste any time in buying them.

It could happen at any time, and when it happens, it will happen fast.

I think I wrote that the panda expos represented the peak of the panda series, before they lost respect due to being debased. This will all be clear in hindsight, but for now, I think I'm the only one that sees it this way.

That's why I grouped the panda expos with the baby pandas, the lunar pandas, and the nanjing pandas.

They're all related.

The fame of the baby pandas will lead to fame for the lunar pandas and nanjing pandas, and then that in turn will lead to fame for the panda expos.

Collectors fascinated by this history will need all 4 types of coins.

And if there's one collectors do, it's collecting :)

Interesting. So, you think the expos and the nanjing and baby pandas might become really popular, even if the series is discontinued?

And if there's one thing collectors do, it's collecting :)

Coinstar1: Yes, I do think they will be important to panda collectors, but I'm not sure which series you mean will be discontinued.

The good news is the mintages are so low, there literally only needs to be a few hundred hard core panda collectors to drive prices to the moon for those conis.

I thing you mentioned that the expos would be discontinued. The lunar pandas I could see growing a large collector base, just because they are an ongoing series. The others, though, would be discontinued, wouldnt' they?

Yes, mostly. The baby pandas might be continued, according to rumors I've heard. I have just been given permission TODAY to publish info about more Nanjing pandas. The mints are recognizing in hindsight that those coins were much more successful than they expected.

That's good news for their future.

The panda expos being discontinued is actually a good thing, because of the quirky historical fact that the panda expos were VIP-only. So, they have special status that way. I'm not sure what would happen if they were continued. Honsestly, they might win either way.

That's how some of my analysis turns out for these coins. The historical facts are positive for investment purposes, and it's not so important what exactly those facts are.

AS long as they're interseting.

Asl long as they're interesting.

cool, I look forward to reading your info. Also, as I understand it, the artist for the nanjing pandas is the same one who did the nanjing dragon and phoenix

That would be exciting.

They have a similar style.

I didn't know it was the same artist though.

Yeah, I think I remember seeing the same name on the COAs.

Perhaps the artist is the chief artist for Nanjing mint's non fiat items?

Could be, that's an interesting line of research to pursue.

Well, need to bounce now. Great talking to you badon, see you around!

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