People who bought Mandela R5 coins as an investment are struggling to resell them, Moneyweb reported on Tuesday.
Several clients who purchased R5 Mandela coins from SA Coin have been experiencing difficulties reselling them.
Sealed bags of uncirculated R5 Mandela 90th birthday coins – 400 coins per bag – are available on the Bid or Buy auction website, and have been since 2008.
About 22 million R5 Mandela coins were minted in 2008, according to Hlengani Mathebula, the head of group strategy and communications at the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). The coins are manufactured by the South African Mint, which is a subsidiary of the SARB. The mintage is confirmed by Hern’s Handbook of SA Coins
The Citizen’s Business section named several sellers who could not find buyers, including Dave Ridley, who bought several coins for between R28,000 and R65,000 between 2008 and 2010. He placed the coins on mandate to sell last March but has yet to sell them.
SA Coin accounts manager Corien Badenhorst was quoted as saying: “We do apologise for the wait but we are behind on all the mandates as we had no one dealing with them last year.
“We are still trying to sell mandates that have been on mandate for more than two years now. It’s been a slow year and the markets are very slow.”
If you have paid thousands of rands for a R5 Mandela coin, which you bought as an investment, you are neither an investor nor a collector. You are a victim, Glenn Schoeman, the president of the South African Association of Numismatic Dealers, says.
Cunning dealers, hoping Mandela’s “iconic brand” would sell, have talked up a market around these coins, which are on sale for anything from a couple of hundred rand to R1 million.
But interest in the dead black leader is fading faster than the value of the coins.
Some speculate that the living black leader, Barack Obama’s dwindling popularity has affected Mandela’s image negatively.