Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole….

When The Royal Mint created the first Beatrix Potter coins in 2016, they tapped into something new and VERY lucrative.  Coins had always been adult-themed, so to release a series aimed primarily at children was a bold move indeed.  However, it has paid off big time.

  Since then they have slowly realised just how many children’s characters there are from years gone by who are waiting to be ‘used’.  Hence, we have had all manner of coins from ‘Winnie the Pooh’ to ‘Alice in Wonderland’.  Needless to say, other mints have also taken note of this marketing strategy.  This is why Gibraltar released ‘Guess How Much I Love You’ and why the Isle of Man decided to put out a series of ‘Mr Benn’.

Creating a product that will appeal to children is usually effective.  Most kids will not be logging on to buy coins for themselves, but if these releases are good enough, they will push their parents to the brink of insanity and create a sale for Royal Mint anyhow.  After all, precisely how a sale comes about is unimportant, only the sale itself is.

Mint are now pulling out all the stops when it comes to child-orientated items.  Goodness knows why they didn’t realise it sooner, but since 2016 they have proper cottoned on to how much money there is to be made in this area.  You don’t entirely agree?  Then perhaps you haven’t seen their ‘Mintlings’ section which has materialised over recent years?  Or you are unaware of their charming, ‘Dilwyn the Welsh Dragon’ (catchy) children’s books?

‘Most kids will not be logging on to buy coins for themselves, but if these releases are good enough, they will push their parents to the brink of insanity and create a sale for Royal Mint anyhow’

It is an old, old road in retail, but a relatively new one for The Royal Mint.  And boy are they steaming down it right now.  In fact, they couldn’t be travelling it any faster if they were using Mad Max’s ‘Interceptor’.  It would seem, therefore, that ‘Kiddie Koins’ are very much the future over at RM.  Bearing this in mind, you can fully expect to see all manner of ‘classic’ or ‘retro’ characters pulled out of forgotten bookshelves and mislaid TV shows.  I don’t find it at all difficult to imagine seeing ‘Scooby Doo’, ‘Wind in the Willows’ or ‘Noddy’ on fifty pences in the next few years.

There are, of course, a few characters and stories they may well choose to avoid.  ‘Captain Pugwash’ could be one due to the persistent urban myth about sexual references throughout.  ‘The Magic Roundabout’ could also pose a problem as each character was allegedly shaped around a different type of illicit drug.  Mind you, there are still a lot of stories (and a few bits of evidence too) about Lewis Caroll…..  yet this did not prevent the release of two ‘Alice in Wonderland’ five pound coins…..  as beautiful as they are with Sir John Tenniel’s intricate line work.

The Isle of Man too took the bold move of releasing coins from both ‘Alice’ books.  Unfortunately they did not use the original illustrations and implemented a rather pants ‘modern’ style instead.

Oh dear.  Learning curves and fine tuning techniques I expect….

 

© Article and images (except where stated) copyright Mik Smith 2022

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