If you tried to buy any of the new A$2 Bluey collectable coins online when they went up for sale earlier this month, you probably saw the same message thousands of others did:

Our Online Shop is temporarily unavailable due to high demand.

Our Online Shop is temporarily unavailable due to high demand.

The single most valuable product released that day — a 99.9% silver coin, featuring the Heeler family – quickly sold out. It’s since been listed for resale online for as much as six times its original $115 price.

As a researcher who’s tracked rises and falls in the price of silver, the huge price premium on those rarer silver coins got me wondering: how much extra are people paying for the Bluey brand itself, versus the coin’s silver content?

The answer? Quite a lot.

Online ballots to buy Bluey coins

The latest sales frenzy for the latest Bluey coins was entirely predictable. The Royal Australian Mint and Australia Post have run the same playbook before, with sold out coin sales in September 2024 and October last year.

The online ballot – run by the Mint through online platform EQL – allocates limited edition coins to a lucky few, then Australia Post handles the public release.

Australia Post’s website crashed within minutes of this year’s launch.

Happy collectors who managed to buy one of the latest silver coins before they sold out have since shared their photos online.

Silver content vs the Bluey premium

There are now dozens of Bluey-themed coins from........

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