Darth Vader, Mickey Mouse, Stormtroopers, and Scrooge McDuck, have all featured on bullion coins from that king of the popular culture licence, the New Zealand Mint. They’ve been mining the extensive Disney catalogue for a few years now, but they’ve preferred to stick to the older stuff as far as classic Disney is concerned. A change for the mint is this new APMEXclusive issue celebrating, in a particularly timely fashion it has to be said, the 25th anniversary of the much loved Lion King. Why timely? This week has seen the premiere of the new remake of the movie, using extensive and very high quality CGI in place of the old school traditional animation. Almost certain to be a box office hit, what better time to tap that interest with a new bullion coin than now?

Coins of this type from the NZ Mint tend to follow a set pattern. Issued for Niue, they’re available in a 1-oz silver format, and a 1-oz gold. That is indeed the case here, but with the interesting caveat that the mintage is a fraction of the normal amount. In the past, their bullion coins have tended to have a mintage cap of 250,000 units in silver, and 25,000 in gold. Even though the subject of this issue will be popular, just 25,000 silver and 250 gold coins are being struck. That’s a drop of 90% and 99% respectively, making these quite the rarity for a Disney bullion coin.

They’ve certainly chosen an iconic image for the design. The view of Simba on Pride Rock is one that’s almost become the de facto way to depict a lion. The radiating lines representing the sun help to fill out the background field, but at heart, it’s a simple affair, and more powerful because of it. The obverse is a standard Niue affair – just the usual effigy of QEII and the inscribed issue information. So, King on one side, Queen on the other…

As we hinted at above, this one is exclusive to US giant, APMEX, who have sole worldwide distribution rights to it. The gold coin is sold individually encapsulated, but you can pick up the silver in tubes of 25 coins or monster boxes containing 10 tubes, as well as singly. The limited mintage and popular subject means this could be a clever buy, but as always, we’ll leave that decision up to you. The coins are up on the APMEX site now, and should be available to order shortly.