Perth Mint Australian Lunar Series: The Complete Collector's Guide

The Australian Lunar series is the longest-running zodiac coin program in modern numismatics. The Perth Mint began it in 1996, and it is now three chapters and thirty years deep. This guide covers what the series actually is, how the three chapters differ, which year belongs to which animal, and what to check before buying a graded example.

What the series is

The Perth Mint issues one coin design per year, carrying the animal of that year in the Chinese zodiac, in a repeating twelve-year cycle. Each complete cycle is a numbered series. When the twelve animals are exhausted, the Mint retires the designs entirely and starts a new series with fresh artwork — which is why a Series I Dragon and a Series III Dragon are different coins, not reissues of the same one.

That structure is what separates the Lunar program from most world coin series. A collector is not accumulating one design in different years; they are assembling a set of twelve distinct designs, and then, if they continue, a second and third set of twelve. It also means every design has a hard end: once the year passes, the Perth Mint does not strike it again.

The coins are legal tender in Australia, carry a face value in Australian dollars, and are struck at the Perth Mint in Western Australia — the only mint of its era still operating on its original 1899 site.

The three chapters

Series I: 1996–2007

The original cycle. Gold was struck from the first year; silver joined in 1999, three years in. Series I was produced before the program had the following it has now, which has a consequence collectors feel today: these coins were bought to be kept in drawers and albums, not submitted for certification. Survivors in the top grades are scarce out of proportion to their mintage figures.

Mintages were capped — no weight exceeded 100,000 pieces, and the 1 oz gold was restricted to 30,000. Several years sold out at the Mint. Completing a Series I gold set in MS 70 is one of the harder projects in modern world numismatics.

Series II: 2008–2019

The chapter most collectors build sets in. Series II brought redesigned reverses at higher relief and, more importantly, the full fractional range: 1/20 oz, 1/10 oz, 1/4 oz, 1/2 oz, 1 oz, 2 oz and 10 oz in gold. That range is what turned the Lunar program from a specialist pursuit into a mainstream one, because it made a complete twelve-animal set achievable at several different levels.

Series II also introduced the colorized and gilt variants that now sit among the harder pieces to find in MS 70 — the standard issues were struck to demand for most weights, but the variants were not.

Series III: 2020–2031

The current cycle, opening with the 2020 Mouse. Series III carries the newest artwork and an unusual run of special issues: the P125 anniversary privy marks, dragon-privy strikes, colorized half-ounce silvers and gilt proofs.

Because Series III is current, condition expectations are higher. MS 70 and PF 70 are the working grades, and First Day of Issue, First Strike and First Releases designations carry real weight on the label. The scarcity sits in the variants: a privy-marked or colorized strike will often have a graded population in the low hundreds against a standard issue in the tens of thousands.

Which year is which animal

Series IV is scheduled to begin in 2032 with the Mouse.

Metals, sizes and purity

Gold has been .9999 fine throughout the program. Sizes across the three series run 1/20 oz, 1/10 oz, 1/4 oz, 1/2 oz, 1 oz, 2 oz and 10 oz, with a 1 kilo issue in some years. Not every size exists for every year — the fractional range widened with Series II.

Silver was .999 fine from 1999 through 2016, and moved to .9999 fine from 2017 onward. This catches people out: two silver Lunars of the same size from either side of 2017 are not the same specification, and the holder will say so. Sizes run 1/2 oz through 10 oz, with 1 kilo and larger formats in some years.

Platinum appears only sparingly, in a handful of Series III years.

How mintages actually work

This is the part most summaries get wrong. The Lunar series does not have one mintage policy — it has two, and which one applies determines whether a coin is genuinely scarce.

Series I coins were struck to fixed caps: 30,000 for the 1 oz gold, 300,000 for the 1 oz silver, and no weight above 100,000. Those are hard numbers, and several years reached them.

For most weights in Series II and III, the Perth Mint strikes to demand rather than to a cap. The mintage is whatever was ordered during the issue window, then production stops when the year ends. That produces mintage figures that look large but are unpredictable, and it is why the interesting scarcity in the later series is not in the standard issues at all — it is in the colorized, gilt and privy-marked variants, which are capped, often at a few thousand pieces.

So a 2012 Dragon with a 30,000 mintage and 183 coins graded MS 69 is a different proposition from a 2024 colorized half-ounce with a 5,000-piece cap. Both are worth owning; they are scarce for opposite reasons.

Grading, and why the population matters more than the mintage

On a modern series struck to a high standard, the mintage tells you how many exist. The population report tells you how many exist in the condition you are buying — and on Lunars those two numbers diverge sharply.

Lunar surfaces mark easily. The high-relief reverses introduced in Series II have broad open fields that show contact from the mint's own packaging, which is why a coin can be untouched by human hands and still grade MS 68. The gap between the MS 69 and MS 70 populations on a given year is frequently an order of magnitude.

The designations matter too, and they are not interchangeable:

• MS (Mint State) applies to business strikes; PR or PF applies to proofs. A proof is not a better MS coin — it is a different production process.
• DCAM (PCGS) and Ultra Cameo (NGC) describe frost-to-mirror contrast on proofs. They are quality designations, not grades.
• First Strike (PCGS) and Early Releases (NGC) mean the coin was submitted within a defined window after release. First Day of Issue is narrower still.
• NGCX is NGC's ten-point scale, where a 10 corresponds to a traditional 70.

What to check before you buy

1. Verify the certification number. Every NGC, PCGS and CACG holder carries a unique number that can be looked up on the grading service's own site. It confirms the coin, the grade, and how many others share it. If a seller will not give you the number before purchase, that is the answer.
2. Check the population at that grade, not the mintage. They are different questions.
3. Confirm the silver purity against the year. Pre-2017 is .999; 2017 onward is .9999.
4. Match the animal to the year. Use the table above. Mislabeled listings are common on marketplaces, and a “Series I Tiger” dated 2010 is a Series II coin.
5. Look at the actual coin. Two coins in the same grade are not equal. Ask for photographs of the specific slab, not a stock image.

Where to start

If you are beginning a set, the 1/20 oz gold cycle in Series II is the most attainable complete run. If you are collecting for rarity, the Series I gold in MS 70 is the hardest and the Series III capped variants are the most contested. If you want one coin, a Dragon — 2000, 2012 or 2024 — is the animal with the most consistent demand behind it.

assay house holds the series across all three chapters. Every listing is a single certified coin, photographed in its own holder, with the grading service, grade and certification number stated so the population can be checked before purchase.

• All Australian Lunar coins
• Gold Lunar · Silver Lunar
• Series I (1996–2007) · Series II (2008–2019) · Series III (2020–2031)
• By animal: Dragon · Rabbit · Snake · Ox · Horse · Tiger
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