thought this might be a good read for those who collect. I was planning to stop with the 2025 issues myself anyways
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The German finance ministry has stopped the planned sale of two commemorative coins after the cost of their silver content surpassed their face value.
The unusual step, which affects the issuance over the next three months of a €20 and a €25 coin popular with collectors, highlights the extent of the current rally in precious metals.
While the surge in the silver price is less pronounced than that of the gold price, the precious metal reached a new all-time high this month at $54.30 per troy ounce and is 60 per cent more expensive than at the start of the year.
The first casualty is a coin depicting the biblical “Three Wise Men” as part of a Christmas-themed series of €25 coins that started in 2021. They are made from 22g of pure silver which has a current market value of about €29. Previous editions have been sold for as much as €45.95.
A €20 coin commemorating 125 years since the creation of a suspension monorail in Wuppertal, scheduled for January, will also be shelved. The coin, which consists of 16.6g of pure silver, also depicts Tuffi, an elephant who jumped out of a suspended carriage in 1950, when a public relations stunt for a circus went wrong.
“As a result of the sharp rise in the price of silver, the material value of the German €20 and €25 silver coins currently exceeds their respective face value by a significant margin,” the finance ministry said. It has issued 10 commemorative coins so far this year, including four €20 silver issues.
Despite plans to sell the coins at a mark-up, “under these circumstances, issuing new coins of this kind is not possible”, it added. The ministry said it was considering “options for issuing the coins at a later date”, including by issuing them “with adjusted parameters”.
Europe’s strongest economy would then employ an ancient fix once used by Roman emperor Nero: to lower the amount of silver in what experts call the debasement of coinage.
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