Proof modern silver bullion coins--Are they "rare"?

[Pecus100-migration]

Many people argue that proof versions of modern silver bullion coins--Eagles, Kookaburras, Libertads, Britannias, Pandas and Aussie and Chinese Lunars--do not really enhance their value because they are just too recent and because 500-1000 of these coins is too many to really be "rare." Does the size of the proof coin matter--are 1 oz, 2 oz, 10 oz and kilo proofs equally valuable as long as the mintages are the same?

 

Or are these proof coins just a marketing device?

[Zoins]

Many people argue that proof versions of modern silver bullion coins--Eagles, Kookaburras, Libertads, Britannias, Pandas and Aussie and Chinese Lunars--do not really enhance their value because they are just too recent and because 500-1000 of these coins is too many to really be "rare."

It depends on collector demand. If there's no collector demand, 500 can be considered exceedingly "high" because not enough collectors want them. If there is a lot of collector demand, even 900,000 can be "low" (1999 US silver proof sets) because most will end up with collectors. The 1995-W American Eagle proof silver bullion coin has a mintage of 30,195 and it is considered "rare" with a price to match.

 

American Eagles, Chinese Pandas and maybe Chinese Lunars seem to have some collectors. I haven't seen too much evidence of collector premiums for the rest.

[World Colonial]

There is a difference between rarity, price and availability. There are many high priced coins (mainly US material) that are expensive, common and available at the same time. Then there are others like Zoins stated that have low mintages that no one seems to want. One example is the 1984-1994 Swiss 1000 Franc gold issues with mintages of 250-400. They are not legal tender which probably hurts their pricing but when I first found out about them, I was surprised that coins from a popular country sold for as little as they do.