As you may imagine, we at bidorbuy are thrilled to have South African Mint auction what are undoubtedly two absolute jewels for any coin collector’s collection.

The auctions open today at noon and feature:

The SARB 90th Anniversary Sterling Silver Set, consisting of a proof R5 circulation coin and a £100 29 gram sterling silver bank note replica, which is on the current Crazy Wednesday auction (19 and 20 July) with the R1 starting bid. There are 4500 silver sets minted, and the one on bidorbuy auction is number one.

The SARB 90th Anniversary Gold Set, consisting of a proof R5 circulation coin, a proof R5 sterling silver bi-colour coin, and a £100 2oz 24-carat gold bank note replica, which is on auction from 19 to 30 July with the opening bid of R22,000. There are 500 gold sets minted, and the one on bidorbuy auction is number one.

As you can see from the description above, both the silver and the gold 90th anniversary SARB sets are exceptional collector’s pieces.

The same can not be said of the “regular” R5 coins that have been minted for circulation to commemorate the same anniversary, 90 years of SARB. The very fact that there are 5,000,000 million of them (yes, five million) precludes any reasonable hope that these, circulation coins will ever be worth more than their face value (R5).

But, since history tends to repeat itself, a flood of circulation 90th anniversary R5 coins is surfacing on bidorbuy, just as it happened with the Mandela circulation coins (the inauguration coin, the 2000 coin, the 2008 coin). And while we at bidorbuy persist that these coins are worth exactly their face value, we, of course, cannot stop anyone from buying them for more than R5 for sentimental or whatever other reasons. What we can do is warn the buyers that the future investment value of any coin of which 5,000,000 were made (that a lot of zeros!)  is very dubious indeed, and warn the sellers that they may not sell the 90th SARB anniversary coins in bags – if they can sell them at all… Do keep an eye on the Coin section of our Forum for latest updates.