Thanks for your and cpm9ball's answer, it's a shame the mint doesn't release such coins more regularly -also Lehigh96 needs to be applauded for his awesome photographs. Yes a very nice Vreneli.
That Galilei/Year of Physics coin I have too. Nice design indeed. I am not so fond of the "mandatory packaging" though which makes the coins quite a bit more expensive. Don't get me wrong, they do a nice job with these coin cards and sleeves, but it would be nice to have an issue at face value too. Side note: The AASFN just issued a neat €5 silver collector coin dedicated to Amerigo Vespucci, with his quote from Dante's Divina Commedia. Will get that one as well ... Christian
Ah, that one is in my collection as well. Here is another coin (which I don't have) that shows the same castle: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/archive/3/38/20111013132737!100_euro_wartburg_wertseite.jpg (€100 gold, issued last year) By the way, strictly speaking "Neusilber" is not quite the same as Cu-Ni. Those coins also contain zinc, ie. Cu620 Zn200 Ni180. But the "look" is pretty much the same ... Christian
The Wartburg bei Eisenach is listed as Unesco World Heritage, mostly famous for the translation of the New Testament from Greek to German by Martin Luther in autumn 1521 and yes there is a dungeon. I guess this constitutes as a real Burg. Normally it's decently possible to differentiate Neusilber from real Silber (by color), there are only a few coins where it can be tricky. For example the GDR commemorative Öffnung des Brandeburges Tores am 22. Dezember 1989 was released in Neusilber and 999 fine silver. I've both, this one is the "Blech" (Neusilber) version which is in my opinion pretty close in color to real silver!
Well, I only have the "Neusilber" version (Blech, tsk tsk ) so I cannot really tell. The coin in your photo does look silverish, but I assume that a side-by-side comparison would show the difference. If one has only coin, a precision scale should help ... Christian