Thoughts On Franklin Mint World Coins

The demise of the Franklin Mint illustrates what could happen with any mint that over produces with 'bright 'n shiny' NCLT, NIFC coins for the collector market.

There have been a few threads here in the CCF that have criticized the RCM and the RAM for over production of high quality coins, commemorating relatively frivoulus subjects.

Rare coins, of many different relatively insignificant commemorative subjects,
minted in low numbers, that are sold on the secondary collector market, for not much above melt.

I have Franklin Mint coins of Pacific Island countries in standard metals,
that have mintage numbers in the hundreds, and are correctly priced in Krause for $10 or less.

Thankfully you can choose any coins, tokens,medals, or currency, or any combination, any way YOU decide.

There really is no right or wrong as long as you enjoy the process. If you love those NCLT coins, grab them.

Most of us collect to learn. Perhaps we hope to break even monetarily. But beyond that, it should be fun.

This might be better stated as "officially licensed" in the same sense that Disney might license the image of Mickey Mouse for one consumer product or another. In some instances, yes, smaller countries will contract with private mints to produce coins for circulation. However, in many cases it's private mints seeking governments willing to license their country name and "legal tender" status for exclusive limited-edition collectibles. "Legal tender" has a very narrow legal definition and does not necessarily mean that these limited-edition coins will be accepted in commerce or for deposit with banks.

Yes, these coins are of interest and are NOT all NCLT. Some in the earlier years were struck for countries such as Belize to the tune of 20,00 or more and I have most certainly seen well-circulated examples of these.
What is fascinating is that the larger denomination coins were struck for circulation and sent to the Central Banks of the respective countries, often in sacks and given little if any respect. Because they were of larger denomination and not used, and did not contain precious metals meant that there were either sequestered in corners of the bank vault, scrapped, or?
So besides many times having beautiful designs that were struck to high quality, many are scarce to rare to nearly impossible and replete with much mystery as the simple fact is that we are unsure in many instances how many were struck, and if any even survive.
Love them, and they are affordable.
And if anybody finds larger circulation struck either PL or matte versions for $10, please let me know as I would be a ready buyer. I am a collector (NOT a dealer!) and enjoy correspondence about these coins and will try to field questions.

I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment to collect what you like.

I consider every coin to be a treasure. A treasure of history, knowledge to be found, a story to be told.

Although it is not a focus of mine, I think the history of Joseph H. Segel and the Franklin Mint is amazing. Whatever we might think of his aggressive marketing and later collapse of the market for those pieces, I consider Segel and his Franklin mint to be the origin of NCLTs and today's incredibly popular artistic bullion coin market. In my view, the Franklin Mint and the products it created form the nexus of the transition from modern to post modern coinage.

And, as it happens, many years later the coins they produced for some countries are drawing more attention from collectors. Many have beautiful designs and the quality of the coins they produced was very good indeed.

Enjoy collecting whatever you like and you can't go wrong!

Another thing to consider when it comes to Franklin Mint products is the relatively low survival rates. Mintage numbers cannot be used as a reliable guide for estimating the number of actually existing examples. The reason is this: while Franklin Mint coins are almost always of very high quality, the packaging which the coins were sold in was absolutely not.

Franklin Mint coins, particularly the Proofs, came with a little handling kit that included PVC gloves (!), plastic tweezers (!) and an instruction card on "how to take care of your coins". The card told people to use scissors to cut open the blister pack the coins were shipped in, lift the coins out and carefully place them into the appropriate holes in the pseudo-velvet-lined plush case supplied with the coins. Unfortunately, the pseudo-velvet chosen by Franklin Mint, particularly the red ones, released acidic vapours. Worse than PVC, that stuff. Ironically, the blister packs were very similar to the packaging many modern mints still use today and are actually quite good at preserving the coins for several decades, but virtually all of the coin sets where the proud new owners carefully followed the instructions from the Franklin Mint have been ruined by being stored in acidic plastic holders for a decade or more.

The only survivors were the coin sets bought by (a) lazy people, who simply left their coins in the blister packs, and (b) actual coin collectors, who ignored Franklin Mint's instructions as they already knew how to take care of coins, so they put the coins into 2x2s or some other mostly harmless storage system. Franklin Mint's marketing strategy targeted the general population, not just coin collectors, so the percentage of buyers who were experienced coin collectors was actually quite small. As a result, only a small fraction of Franklin Mint mintages have survived to the present day in collectable condition.

Also shrinking the survival ratio, of course, is the pariah status which Franklin Mint coins endured. Many of the precious metal coins ended up in the melting pot, as there was no secondary market for the things - nobody wanted them. Base-metal coins ended up in world coin scratch-trays and bulk coin lots.