I just came to post mostly what Snarlpill said.
Start with the 2016 Year of the Monkey and continue each year going forward. This gives a good opportunity for early collectors of the series to see profits as new collectors each year drive up the premiums on previous years as they try to collect a full set. This is also seen with Chinese Pandas.
Hi yeah a new specific hologram and some kind of design like the silver casascius coins but instead of the 1's and 0's the little devil heads.. anyway I will finalise that nearer the time I guess. I might hold a design competition for the back surrounding the hologram.
Design competition for a new specific MicroSoul hologram sounds cool, I would try my hand at it just for fun. I think it would be neat to incorporate Chinese symbols into it, maybe a rough Chinese translation of MicroSoul if it's only for the MicroSoul Lunar Series coins.
As far as what design to make first- I would try to stick to the current year's Lunar animals. Like for 2015 I believe is the Year of the Goat for the Perth Mint and other's silver bullion coins (I could be wrong, I follow coins and silver but not the various Lunar coins). I think you'd have better luck with your goal of them selling to "non-Bitcoin" people if the year and animal matched up with the current year's Lunar animals on other Silver coins. I would really try to play on the low mintage aspect then as well. I will post it to reddit.com/r/Silverbugs for you when you know a production date or something. Big US/worldwide silver and coin community there.
Thanks. 1 Coin per year is a little slow for me though but I get your point. I was not going to put the actual year on you see. Ie not put 2016 so it can be more generalised and I can make the full set in 2 years.. I don't know if that's a good idea or not? What do you think?
I suppose I could also do special edition ones which will have the year on and limit these to very small numbers.
From a collectors point of view would you prefer a year? Would having a more general coin with no year work?
Thanks for your comments I appreciate it.
The perth mint lunar series that you showed .... you showed series 1, and they are now a good way through series 2 .... although they did have a cross over of the series with both series being done for the 2008 mouse / rat coin ... and I assume upto the end of 2010. Each series has an overall feel, and each series's comparable animal to the other series is different.
They release a set a year. Various denominations from 1/2, 1, 2 5 and 10oz, upto kilos, and above in silver, and also a variety of gold sizes (each years coins have a similar design). They have mirrored finish proof rounds and non mirrored BU rounds in greater numbers. They also issue a few sets of proof coins. Plus they do colourised coins and gilded coins, sometimes a variety of colourised coins in 1 year (certainly did for the more recent snakes and dragons)
It has collectors queueing each year at release time. Older series 1, plus rarer lower mintage varieties, fetch a good premium. But their mint runs are far far greater. There are only a few runs of less than 5000 coins, for the lower / mid denom silvers. Some collect a particular round type. Some just fill their boots on a particular year (like when their kids were born). There are other lunar series, but this is the daddy of them all.
Difficult to translate that into yours. But, by having a year, and by having multiple series, they are having perpetual business.
My 2 satoshis ... I would say ignore whatever years / animals have gone before, and start a new series, 1 issue per year. But that is a big undertaking. Without a year, they are just animal coins, and have no link to the lunar calendar (calendar as in date ...).
If you want to push them all out in one go ... perhaps issue the coins with the various years on for that lunar animal - e.g for the rabbits have a design with the dates 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023 etc. Try and do a 'catch all'. Go back as far as you dare.
Good luck with it :-)
