Australia is well-known for excellence in precious metals, but other island nations have some interesting options as well.
Australia
Australia’s Perth Mint produces many wildly popular designs, but one of the most iconic is the annual Silver Koala series. These .999 pure silver pieces come in a range of sizes, and the reverse design changes every year.
The obverse depicts Queen Elizabeth, as the country operates as a constitutional monarchy.
Another favorite is the Australian Gold Kangaroo made of .9999 fine gold. Those coins feature the long-limbed marsupial on the reverse and the portrait of the queen on the obverse.
Australia bucks the sovereign mint trend, and has two mints that produce bullion, each with separate designs. The Royal Australian Mint has a smaller selection, but does offer excellent bullion artwork.
Australia Highlights
- More than 80 percent of Australians live within 100 kilometres of the coast, making Australia one of the world’s most coastal dwelling populations.
- The world’s largest cattle station is over 34,000 square kilometers in South Australia. (That’s bigger than the country of Belgium!)
- Australian schools have a no hat/no play policy: students are required to wear a hat to protect them from the intense sun during recess.
- Grab a bite of kangaroo: the lean meat is said to be an environmentally friendly alternative. Be careful when traveling: GPS systems have had problems in the Outback, and Australia is home to 20 of the world’s 25 most venomous snakes.
Fiji
The Republic of Fiji is a small island nation in the South Pacific. The Fiji Silver Taku is incredibly popular with investors. It is composed of .999 fine silver and is produced for Fiji by the New Zealand Mint.
The reverse shows a stylized Hawksbill Turtle swimming. This endangered turtle is known in Fiji as the Taku.
The obverse shows the Fiji Coat of Arms, which features a masted ship, two native people, and an island crest.
Fiji Highlights
- The country is made up of more than 330 islands, 110 of which are permanently populated.
- Fiji offers more than 4,000 square miles of coral reef, and is home to more than 1,500 species of sea creatures.
- Fiji was a British territory until 1970, and English remains one of the official languages, alongside Fijian and Hindustani.
- You may want to time your visit for the New Year’s celebration of veicaqu moli or “kick the orange,” in which village women…kick the orange. Stand on the International Date Line, which crosses Fiji; you can stand in both today and yesterday simultaneously.
What is the best investment from Australia or Fiji?
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If nothing else, Australia has the most entertaining currency in the world… from the echidna on the 5c piece, to the platypus on the 20c piece, to the apex of circulating world currency reverse designs on the “mob of roos” $1 coin… not to mention the popular Kangaroo Series of sliver coins from the RAM. As your article mentions, the Perth Mint is notable for its brilliant designs and state-of-the-art minting processes; and their bullion coins–gold kangaroos, silver crocodiles, platinum platypi (?), or anything else they put their minds to–blow comparable products like the out of the water. My only regret is that Australia is restricted to sticking Queen Elizabeth’s head on the obverse; imagine what they could design if given two sides of a coin to work with. 🙂 I have no doubt the Chinese Panda would pale in comparison.
People can yap all they want about how beautiful American Silver Eagles are (which they are *NOT*!!!); but for me, I think Australia is the world leader in sovereign minting. Your opinion may (and probably does) differ. I’m just glad shipping charges from Aus to USA are so expensive, or I would go broke ordering from the RAM & Perth Mint.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the task of trying to track down a Berlin World Money Fair edition of the $1 mob of roos proof! 🙂