Coinage

What do you get when you combine voracious coin collectors with voracious James Bond collectors?  A desperate scramble.  The Royal Mint released their “James Bond Collection” this morning.  I was on the e-mail list to be notified when it was available, so I got the e-mail late last night – but didn’t go onto their website until about ½ hour later.  A critical mistake.  The signs were ominous from the fact that there was a waiting queue to actually enter the Royal Mint website (about 4000 people before me when I tried).    But fortunately didn’t have to wait too long to finally get on.  But sure enough, all the decent limited edition coins and coin sets had already sold out.  Disappointing.  Though to be sure, I’m not sure I would be prepared to shell out the kind of money they were asking for some of these.  Gold proof coins starting from 500 GBP per coin – that’s a lot of money when you consider there are 3 coins in the set.  And don’t even get me started on the James Bond special issue coins – there was maybe a five-ounce silver proof coin that is my only real regret that I couldn’t get, but that still retailed for 500 GBP.  However, if anyone reading this ever wants to treat me to a ridiculous birthday or Christmas present, then please feel free to buy me a kilo gold proof coin (RRP 60,000 GBP), two-kilo gold proof coin (RRP 130,000 GBP) or the only seven-kilo gold proof coin in existence (didn’t specify an RRP, but I’m imagining we’re talking close to ¾ or a million GBP).

PS Apologies for all the GBP mentions above, this is courtesy of American keyboards and their lack of pound symbol (and, UK-US difference alert, # is called a pound sign here).  I’m sure there is a way to type it but it’s a hassle (and even though I’ve now found it – hold down the Alt key and type 0163 on the numerical keypad – I’m probably not going to remember this, and I can’t be bothered to change the paragraph above now).