Privy- please explain to nube

[Grinder]

Do you consider privy marked coins legitimate collector varieties or just a gimmick mints use to sell more to collectors ?

Some appear strangely unrelated to the coins country or history. Also seems there could be unlimited variations of a coin if they so desired.

Your opinion and insight would be appreciated. Thank you

[Robb]

Well, I know that you can petition the Perth Mint and have them strike one of their coins with your own private little privy, as evidenced by the avalanche of privy marked coins that have flooded the market in the last 8 or 9 years.  

Pretty sure it was SD Bullion or some other large American bullion dealer (J&M Bullion ?) that commissioned the shark privy on the 2017 Kookaburra one ounce.  I think it completely ruins the design but maybe its me, and my lack of appreciation for a beautiful coin with a huge , distracting zit in the middle.  The same coin (2017 Kookaburra 1 oz) can be had with a bunch of different privy marks. Just depends on who paid the Mint to produce them.  Probably cost SD Bullion or whomever an extra .25 cents/coin to have the mint deface the coin with a privy design,  and the dealer then gets an "exclusive" and hopes to sell  them at a premium. 

I think years ago (decades?) privy marks 'maybe' has some value, put as usual, the pendulum has swung so far that getting a non-privy coin is sometimes harder to find.  

Cliff notes version of above:  Gimmick not by mints but by large dealers to sell fake "rare" coins and not worth the premium on any modern bullion coin.  

[NorthEast]

Goofy gimmick for the most part. IMHO 

[auleAboutNumismatics]

Privy to commemorate events related to the coin itself once in years/decades could be meaningful.

I think privy are overused these days for marketing, and loses it's uniqueness...

[Agpanda]

Also, For the kookaburra they have a limit on how many they can do

With privy they dont have a limit

[Kookaburracollector]

Being a collector of 1oz Kookaburra Privy coins, I do agree with most of what is written so far in this thread. The first privy Kook was minted in 1992 and was an eagle. This coin had a limited mintage of 750. The year after they minted another eagle privy, with an even lower mintage of only 500..both lovely proof coins.

After this, the mintages of the privies increased significantly, and has varied from 2500 up to 75000 per issue. As the premium for most of these coins has not been huge, I did not mind collecting them. The most recent ones are from the ANDA EXPOS  (Perth and Brisbane) and cost a little over £30 each, so they are not exactly going to break the bank.

The Kookaburra Privy coins that really xxxx me off are the F15 ones. Outrageously expensive, to the point that I have not bought the 2019 issue. 

[Metalisreal]

Privy marks are taking the lazy way out in my opinion. A good example of this is the American Silver Eagle "V75" privy. If the US mint wants to commemorate the end of WWII it should feature a whole new reverse, perhaps an image of the WWII memorial in Washington DC in addition to a privy mark on the obverse. This would be a lot more meaningful.

[STONE]

Privy is a place you take a dump in.🤑