Last year, German coin producer, MCI-Mint debuted it’s first silver bullion coin depicting elephants and issued for the African Republic of Benin. With a tight mintage of just 5,000 pieces, and with other African issued bullion coins having popular early releases, the coin was well received. Last October the mint followed up that coin with a second one that also created good buzz, so at our recent trot along to the World Money Fair in Berlin, we expected to see perhaps a third elephant-themed coin.

What we saw was the new Hippo coin that had recently been filtering through to dealers and is depicted below. The surprise is that this one is issued for a different African country, the Republic of Chad, and heralds the continuation of what is now called Silverline. There’s no difference in specification from the first two coins, although the reverse design has some fundamental changes in layout from them. They all carry the ‘Protection de la Nature’ inscription, but the hippo loses the ring of twelve profile animals in favour of a larger central design. Both are good, but in light of what’s to follow, we’re not sure if the change is a one-off, or there is to be a little more variety in the Silverline range than before.

A bigger surprise was tucked in a glass cabinet and as yet had no obverse. The Zebra coin goes back to the Elephant style of reverse design and is again, an attractive beast. Specification remains identical, but this one is likely a couple of months away at least. Well worth waiting for in our opinion.

The Hippo again goes for around €35, so a touch more expensive than most bullion coins, but the limited mintage and the weakness of the Euro certainly soften the cost somewhat. It’s extremely unlikely the Zebra will stray far from that price. It looks like MCI’s new Silverline African nature series is shaping up to be one to watch.

UPDATE:

The Zebra coin will be issued for Benin like the Elephant coins, so will likely have the same obverse but it isn’t the third coin in that series, but rather the first of a new one. Interesting news.