World Coin News May 2021

The Pobjoy Mint has announced a beautiful new series of 50p coins featuring Sea Creatures, which is being issued on behalf of the British Indian Ocean Territory. Comparable to earlier Pobjoy Mint sets of turtles and penguins, this new Sea Creatures series should be ideal for introducing children to coin collecting, as well as satisfying the high demand endemic in adult collectors of animal coins. The British Indian Ocean Territory comprises the 50 islands of the Chagos Archipelago which is only a total area of 44 square kilometers, but the territorial seas cover over 60,000 square kilometers containing coral reefs which comprise over 10% of Indian Ocean reef cover and the cleanest seawater ever recorded. This means that the waters around Chagos are a vital natural laboratory for scientists to learn…

Why do we include medals under the umbrella term numismatics? Coin collecting is part of numismatics, but numismatics is more than just collecting coins. Numismatics is the study of money, this including coins, tokens, paper money, electronic payments and any other form of resolving a debt for a good or service. It is also the study of coin-like objects including medals. I’ve heard someone named Pisanello was the first modern medalist. What can you tell me about him? Antonio di Puccio Pisano (about 1380 to 1395 to about 1450 to 1455) was a Renaissance Italian artist known for large murals, portraiture, drawings, and commemorative portrait medals inspired by ancient Roman coins. Pisano or Pisanello as he is better known, was commissioned by the doges of Venice, the pope, and courts of Ferrara, Milan,…

A 1937 Edward VIII 5 Pounds Pattern coin – one of only a small number of commemorative British gold coins produced for the would-be coronation of Edward VIII – set a world record as the most expensive British coin when it sold for $2,280,000 during a public auction of rare world coins held by Heritage Auctions on Friday, March 26. Both rarity and condition contributed to its record setting auction price, according to Cristiano Bierrenbach, Executive Vice President of International Numismatics at Heritage Auctions. “The gold Edward VIII 5 Pound is one of the greatest prizes in British numismatics,” Bierrenbach said. “Uncompromising in terms of its beauty and quality, this coin is one of less than a half dozen believed to be in private hands.” The previous record for the most expensive British…

AFTER 27 YEARS of experience in the coin and bullion industry, Natanya Van Niekerk has left her distinctive artistic mark on both legal tender coins and investment bullion pieces. She has experienced the inner workings of our industry at the national mint, private mint and refinery levels. The constant in each of those channels was that Van Niekerk pursued a holistic approach to precious metal design, combining politics, environment and art. This approach guided Van Niekerk in the creation of almost 20 award-winning coin designs, from 1996 to 2013, including nine Mint Directors Conference (MDC) awards and three Coin of the Year (COTY) category awards, two of which went on to win the overall COTY in the 1999 and 2011 competitions. But this recognition did not appear overnight, as Van Niekerk…

Images of Britannia have appeared on coins of the British Isles since Roman times. The first images of Britannia were based on Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, (AD 41-55), the son of Roman Emperor Claudius with his third wife Valeria Messalina. The British Isles were named for this son. During the second century Roman Emperor Hadrian (AD 177-138) resurrected the image on coinage, but this time as a female Britannia perhaps inspired by goddess of war Minerva. Hadrian justified the change as portraying naval strength. Antonius Pius (AD 138-161) followed with further depictions of Britannia on Roman coins. The image was then put to rest until the 17th century. King Charles II introduced England’s first regal farthing coinage in 1672, a copper coin on which a female Britannia appears seated on a rock…

A Chinese news agency recently reported a woman being arrested for throwing coins from a moving vehicle. The woman said she was practicing a superstition involving money. Several years earlier there was a rash of individuals throwing coins at the engines of jet airplanes, also in China, also practicing a superstition. Be it custom or superstition, yes people are once more literally throwing their money away. The airplane incidents and the highway toss each involved low value coins, but metal coins can nevertheless do damage when thrown. According to a posting to the news service shine.cn/news/metro, “Police in the Pudong New Area received a report from a man surnamed Zhang on March 3 on the incident. Zhang said he was driving on the Outer Ring Road toward Longdong Elevated Road that afternoon…