With Star Wars very much in the ascendant at the moment, it remains the New Zealand Mints biggest licence. An old hand at licenced coin properties, the NZM has released entertainment tie-ins for years, like Doctor Who, Disney and Thunderbirds. With the big competitor Star Trek, being snapped up by the Perth and Royal Canadian Mints, it’s a good time to be a sci-fi coin collector. The simultaneous release of the final three Force Awakens coins today won’t go unnoticed either.

After Darth Vader, Han Solo, and Yoda, the next big character to launch in the flagship Classic Star Wars range will be everybody’s favourite droid, the astromech R2-D2. As before, the clean-struck coin will be available in one and quarter ounce gold variants, and as a one-ounce silver. The Vader coin was also available, although not at launch, as a Deathstar-sized one-kilo coin, but no subsequent issue has appeared in the format, so we guess the demand wasn’t great enough. Mintages for R2-D2 remain at 10,000 for the silver, with the gold at 1,000 for the ¼oz and 500 for the 1oz.

Packaging is as decent as ever and remains in line with previous releases. Unlike the Yoda coin, which took the unusual, but effective step of cropping the design for the smaller gold coin, the artwork remains the same for all three variants. Prices stay at US, $85.00 for the silver, $620.00 for the smaller gold, and $2,500 for the larger. With Star Wars set to continue to be a huge, dominant force in movies for many years to come, these coins will no doubt prove equally popular as time passes. The coins should be up for sale later today.