The Chinese lunar calendar is known to be thousands of years old but they still use it today to mark special events and festivities. In fact, their system is known worldwide along with the twelve animals used to differentiate its cycles.

Said to signify the courage and competitiveness of a natural leader, the tiger is one of those twelve animals and is found on some of the newest releases from The Perth Mint. The 2010 Year of the Tiger Silver Coins feature a variety of options for the collector or gift giver.

Perhaps the most popular in this series will be the colored tiger silver coin. Struck from one ounce of 99.9% pure silver, the 1 dollar face value coin shows a lying tiger that has been colorized to its natural hues. To the left of the tiger is the Chinese character for the animal while underneath is the inscription ‘Year of the Tiger.’ The colored coin is available from the Perth Mint for $68.18 AUS and ships with a presentation case. It is limited to a mintage of 170,000 worldwide. Read the rest of this entry »

New York gold futures reached a fresh all-time high on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates and its monetary policy unchanged, which helped push the US dollar lower and made the yellow metal more attractive. Silver and platinum followed along, as did crude oil. For a second straight day, US stocks closed mixed.

New York precious metal figures follow:

• Silver for December delivery rose 22.5 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $17.405 an ounce. It ranged from $17.105 to $17.635.

• Gold for December delivery advanced $2.40, or 0.2 percent, to $1,087.30 an ounce. It ranged from $1,080.50 to $1,098.50.

• January platinum climbed $13.10, or 1.0 percent, to $1,369.30 an ounce.

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The United States Mint this week announced the deadline to order Braille Commemorative Silver Dollars.

The legislation authorizing the coins stipulates that they can only be issued "during the 1-year period beginning January 1, 2009." On its online store, the US Mint has posted the following message:

The 2009 Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar products must be issued by December 31st. In order to meet these requirements, the United States Mint is only accepting orders for these products until December 11th at 5:00 p.m. ET. Please note that all credit card and billing issues must be resolved prior to December 11th.

The coin products referenced in the notice all honor the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, inventor of the Braille system for reading and writing by the blind and visually impaired. The four available, along with their prices and latest sales figures as of Sunday, Nov. 1, follow: Read the rest of this entry »

The annual Penny Harvest is now underway with an estimated 500,000 students participating in the 19th year of its operation.

Schools across the nation have signed on to take part in the activity by allowing their students to take an active roll in the process. Through the use of adult coaches, peer leaders, assemblies, etc., kids are asked to volunteer their time to help raise money for their community, one penny at a time.

Those who do participate then go home and ask their family, friends, and neighbors for loose change (as well as donate some themselves) and begin to collect it to be eventually turned back in to their school. Once the coins are compiled, the funds are set aside while those same students take an active part in deciding what do to with the money. Read the rest of this entry »

The second 100 Euro coin in the gold series "Crowns of the House of Habsburg" will be released on Wednesday, 4th November. It is dedicated to the so-called "Archduke’s Hat", a name derived from the red velvet cap within the crown itself.

The title of archduke was invented by Rudolf IV in the spurious document of 1358/59 called the privilegium maius. It was an attempt to assert the status of the House of Habsburg as the equal of any Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire. There exists a mediaeval portrait of Rudolf wearing a crown similar to the Archduke’s Hat. Early versions of the crown have not survived, being either broken up or melted down.

In 1616, however, Archduke Maximilian III of Tyrol had the present Archduke’s Hat fashioned and he gave it to the Augustinian Abbey of Klosterneuburg just outside Vienna in honour of St. Leopold, whose tomb and shrine are still situated there to this day. The crown was not worn as such. There was no coronation. It was rather a symbol of authority and rank. It was brought into Vienna only for the ceremony of homage paid by the Estates of Lower Austria on the accession of a new Habsburg ruler. Even today the crown is not permitted to be outside the walls of the abbey for more than 30 days at a time. Read the rest of this entry »