And the next lot LOL 2011 Luxembourg 2 euros 50th Anniversary of the Appointment of Jean Grand Duke of Luxembourg by Charlotte Grand Duchess of Luxembourg as lieutenant représentant Images of Grand Duke Henri & Jean plus Grand Duchess Charlotte 2011 Netherlands 2 euros 500th Anniversary of the Publication of The Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus 2011 Slovakia 2 euros 20th Anniversary of Foundation of the Visegrád Group 2011 Slovenia 2 euros Centenary of the Birth of Franc Rozman Stane 2011 Spain 2 euros Patio de los Leones in the Alhambra in Granada
The "Italian Unification" coin I find a little boring. It is always more difficult, granted, to visualize such abstract themes on coins, but here they simply copied and pasted the logo: http://www.italiaunita150.it/media/67086/ita_uni_top_left_240.jpg By the way, the Erasmus coin is the first Dutch piece that shows the queen, plus somebody who is not a royal family member, one the same side. And the coin from Luxembourg is interesting because it shows the country name in the three official languages in microprint. (Have you already started saving some money? This year Monaco issues a Royal Wedding €2 commem ...) Christian
LOL I dont bother with Monaco/Vatican/San marino coins unless I get very lucky on ebay :rollling: Had not realised that about the Lux coin thanks for the heads up on it :thumb: I agree that the Unification is rather dull they might have done well to show images of some of those involved
A good design in my opinion. As for what Beatrix is looking at, see post #154 above. By the way, you will probably know about next year's common issue (10 years of euro cash). I thought it was a great idea that everybody in the euro area could submit his or her design, but the five finalists are not exactly thrilling. Butterflies and beehives, hmm. 2012 will be another busy year for euro collectors. Christian
Wont allow me to vote LOL so I can not be held responsible for the design that wins not sure if I am that keen on any of them to be honest, what do you think Christian? also have you seen the next Netherlands 5 euros that is due out? got some sort of new technology imprinted on it that can be read by mobile phones
As for the 2012 common issue, well, I would have preferred a design that shows (portions of) several notes and coins. A little dull maybe, but it would have been a fairly obvious message - after all, the only text on the coin will be the country name and the "2002-2012". First I did not want to vote at all, as I do not find any of the designs very attractive. Problem is, how could I have told them that I am, on one hand, very interested in the design competition but, on the other hand, disappointed by the five finalists? So ultimately I voted for #1. The design is a little busy but better than butterflies, a second map, two girls or a bee. (I know there are lots of symbols in the designs, e.g. the 27 butterflies correspond to the 27 member states, and the honeycomb has 17 filled cells representing the 17 euro area member states.) We'll see - people in the euro area can vote until 24 June. As for the next Dutch €5 coin, yes, it will have QR code. Do you know what it says? Here is a nice video about the design - from a series of mini-movies showing the process: http://www.knm.nl/Film/nl/page/492/ Scroll down to "Film 4: het ontwerp!" (ie. "the design"); that movie is about 7 minutes long. Here the two artists explain their designs. First Pannos Goutzemisis (who speaks Dutch), then Juan José Sánchez Castaño (who speaks English - starts at about 3:00). At the end (at about 6:00) there is mint director Maarten Brouwer, in Dutch. As you see, Juanjo Sanchez's design was chosen for this coin. Film 5 is also interesting; it shows how the 2D design is turned into 3D (well, with coins it's usually 2.5D, hehe). The ceremonial first strike will be later this month, so I guess the coin comes in late June/early July ... Christian
Seems that 800 designs were submitted for the €2 commem. And I hope that I will one day see the other 795, or as many as possible ... Oh, and here is a design vote that even you can participate in: http://www.suomenrahapaja.fi/eng/webstore/protecting-the-baltic-sea-commemorative-coin-competition Finland issues a "Baltic Sea Protection" €20 collector coin later this year, and here every website visitor may vote. Christian
There is a pretty neat app that is called "Euro Coins." It is organized by country and has pictures of each coin. You can check off what you have and easily check for what you need. It's an awesome resource and something I use when I'm in Europe and get change when I'm out and about. I just thought I'd share!
It's actually "Euro Coin Album," sorry. Here's the apple app page for it... http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/euro-coin-album/id320943398?mt=8
The Dutch "Muntgebouw" coin has just been issued. Here is a photo of several actually minted pieces: http://www.q5g.nl/wp-content/themes/knm/images/background1920_.jpg So you can try the QR code out yourself: Open the file (at its actual size, ie. 100%), start your phone's QR reader ... and enjoy. Well, in this case the result won't be a big surprise, as you will be taken to the site that you downloaded the image from. But it still is a neat feature. Also, in this short movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCpwehEL6BE the designer Juanjo Sanchez talks a little about himself (English, with Dutch subtitles). And here you can read about the design (in English), and also about the six-fold latent image (multi-view minting) that he built into the coin: http://www.q5g.nl/knm/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/The_design_of_the_100_jaar_ muntgebouw_coin.pdf Regarding the design competition for next year's common €2 issue, those of you who live in the euro area and have not voted yet, keep in mind that tomorrow (24 June) is your last chance. http://www.eurocoin-competition.eu/ The winner will be announced on 30 June. Christian
And yes, we have a winner. The design that will become a coin was (not exactly surprisingly) made by a professional, Helmut Andexlinger from the Austrian Mint. As I wrote before, about 800 designs had been submitted. In the "final round", about 35,000 voted. And the winning design got about one third of all votes. So this piece will be issued in early 2012 ... Christian
well it is not the worst I have seen and it is better than the stick man LOL thanks for the update Christian
Now that you brought the stickman up anyway , remember that, in the first phase of the vote for the 2009 piece, another design was ahead? And then somehow the info leaked that the euro/stickman design was made by a Greek artist ... and then lots of "let's vote for that design" messages circulated in Greece and in Greek forums. Who knows, Stamatopoulos may have won anyway, but that left a strange feeling. Well, that "other design" which ultimately did not win, was made by - you guessed it - Helmut Andexlinger. Christian
Side note: On Wednesday (13 July) there will be the "Award Ceremony" for the 2012 commem. Among those who voted for the winning design, they picked a winner who gets a set of collector coins. In other news, Andorra can issue "its own" euro coins as from 1 July 2013. The European Union and the principality signed a monetary agreement which also specifies that 80 percent of the volume will be issued at face. The agreement does not have a clause about what happens if we do not have the euro any more at that time ... So far Andorra has simply used the euro without a formal agreement. They may continue to issue their diner-denominated collector coins, but those do not circulate in the country anyway. Christian
Thanks Christian, latest pick ups are the Greek 2 euro and the Slovenia 3 euro coins will get scans up later in the week
