Real Silver and Gold Jabba the Hutt Coins by the New Zealand Mint

I posted about the New Zealand Mint back in 2015. Back then, I was talking about their gold- and silver-plated coins with Jabba on them. Since they incorporate some kind of color printing or decal into the coin, they don’t quite look like proper coins, but they weren’t super expensive either, although I did have to wait a while to find an acceptable deal on the gold version.

It seems they are stepping up their game a bit, since they have now released 3 high-end coins in silver and gold, all implausibly featuring Jabba the Hutt. The first is the 1oz silver coin pictured below. They all come in a nice looking presentation box, and are proper engraved coins, unlike the previous releases.

This retails for $85 on the company’s website and is limited to 10,000 pieces. (As of this writing, silver costs about $17.50 per oz).

Next we have a 1/4 oz gold coin. It also comes with a nice wood (?) display case. It retails for $600 on the website and is limited to 1,000 pieces.

Gold is currently at roughly $1,300 per oz, so that’s $325 worth of gold and $275 worth of Jabba, I guess.

Finally, there is a 1oz gold coin that retails for $2,500 (!) on the website and is limited to 500 pieces. So you’re paying a $1,200 premium over and above the cost of the gold.

This one uses the same design as the silver coin, showing more of Jabba’s body. It’s not clear just looking at the pictures what the difference between the 1/4 and 1 oz coins is. In fact, the 1 oz version below looks like it might be smaller than the 1/4 oz version above. But looking at the technical specs shows that the 1/4 oz one is 22mm in diameter, while the 1 oz one is 32mm. Maybe the 1 oz is also thicker?

In any case, it’s not often that I introduce items here that I have no intention of buying, but barring a donation from a generous and wealthy fan, there is no way I’m getting the gold versions of these coins. I might consider the silver version, but even then I would have to find a good deal.

I really do wonder if there are 500 people in the world willing to pay $2,500 for a coin like this, but basically I guess it all depends on how much overlap there is between coin collectors and Star Wars fans.