Why Did The Group Of Seven Series Fail?

Art coins are a niche market. It has nothing to do mintage. It could be 5000 coins and it still won't be a hit. Most Canadians are not familar with the Group of Seven. You must be into art to even name a single artist from that group.
Another coin from literature, Alice Munro, also failed to be a hit with similar 7500 mintage. Again, who wants a Alice Munro coin unless you are devoted fan of her works. Same with the Group of Seven painters. Who gives a fig about obscure artists.
Conversely, the Superman coins have been a hit even with large mintage. Superman is a pop culture icon, young and old alike know him.
As for the looks of the coins, its a mixed bag, some look better than others, mainly due to the artwork of that artist.

They just repeats most of the NCLTs path:
being attractive to the owners, absolutelly not needed to anyone else.

$20 drop it still good. I have one of them (coins, not set) extra, and offers to buy - as bullion, for the silver content, only.

I agree chubbycheeks! I feel the set is a victim of just too many coins too choose from in a short space of time and limited consumer dollars. I think if the mint had stuck with limited quarterly releases, it would of given collectors more time to truly appreciate and desire each coins. The series was too rushed and had too much competition. It was the beginning of these massive releases.

I bought my set from someone who had completed it and it's among my most favorite coins. The case is very well done. The coin prices were reasonable when compared to today's current issue prices. They just got buried by the pile of Nclt coins the mint pumps out.

Most of these artist's large pieces sell for millions, but it's hard to put a large square image onto a round area of a coin with another artist rendition as with the terrible gorge coin. This series is typical of the RCM or Mr. Bennett's vision of pounding out as many coins as possible with a limited theme, at one point the case was almost worth half of the coins, if the market price is now below issue how can it ever go up except for silver going to 100.00. This series is exactly what's going to happen to 99% of all new recently NCLT, 2013 only the superman and glass bug held value and this year, looks like superman and the big coin will hold value after over 300 releases, odds are pretty bad for collectors.

At last years RCNA in Winnipeg, the RCM had a large booth and contingent at the show, over heard a conversation between a RCM vp and another RCM employee constantly congrats to each other over their 1/3 constant sellouts. Talked to front line RCM employees manning the booth, with my concerns of overproduction and limited themes, they agree with my points. With this leadership group all they care is crank out coins into the dealership network, and collectors with out the thoughts of a healthy hobby environment, look at the glass bug series, the frog increased mintage destroyed a good series for extra 2500 coins. Be selective in purchasing, you will be able to purchase almost every issue latter at discount with this management philosophy.

Stopped at gorge coin due to design, not to argue, but name me a series of NCLT that has ended, are selling below issue and now are selling above issue except for bullion value increases. As always buy what you like, tried to answer why this series failed.

I agree with John100. By the time the fourth coin came out (Harris), the first three were selling for around $100 or more (in several cases). After the gorge coin came out, and failed to sell out at the Mint because of its 'unique' design, more and more of the first four coins started to appear on the secondary market. Perhaps collectors of the series were turned off by the gorge coin (which I believe isn't as ugly as many claim) and decided to give up on the series. When coin six came out, a similar thing happened. It received negative feedback and the value of the series as a whole, as well as the value of the individual coins, went down. I purchased the Harris coin because I thought it was stunning (and it still is) and I remember being interested in the rest of the series. When I was looking, around the time of the Harris release, I could not find the Varley coin for under $120.
It could also be that there were people who tried to collect the series as a whole just to sell them all, and once the series ended, the market flooded.
We will never know for sure...but it is an interesting topic. I've noticed similar patterns with a lot of NCLT. A month or two after release, the secondary value can be significantly higher, but then it starts to drop. A year later, they can be found again at issue or, sometimes, lower.
But I agree with NuMoosematist. We'll never know for sure until years from now what the value will be.

I'm glad I ended up buying all seven coins (two of them above issue, two below, and three at issue) :D I love this set and it's nice to have scenic coins to break up the (sometimes monotonous) animals. I just wish I had the fancy black subscriber box instead of the seven clamshells. haha

It's one of my favourite sets and I have duplicates of each of the coins and one box.

I don't consider that the series 'failed' though concede that it may not have been a huge success for flippers. I guess success or failure depends on your perspective... and when you flipped the coins. Timing is everything.

I know one flipper made about 100$ selling me the case and 3 coins...