You may know that, 50 years ago, the first men landed on the Moon. And the US Mint is not the only one which celebrates that: Here are two coins that have just been issued, one from Austria, one from Switzerland. The Austrian coin, face value €20, was designed by an Austrian Mint team (Helmut Andexlinger, Anna Rastl, Herbert Wähner) and has a few gimmic--errm, extra features. It is partly colored, glows in the dark and is dome shaped. (The French mint was the first to issue such dome shaped coins, back in 2009, for the Astronomy Year and the Moon Landing's 40th anniversary, but since then other mints have done that too.) Mintage 30,000. Here are two images from the Austrian Mint's web site. Switzerland issued a 20 fr collector coin dedicated to the moon landing in 1969. And here we have a background of involvement so to say. The University of Berne, CH had made a "sun sail" for what was called the Solar Wind Composition Experiment: The 140 x 30 cm aluminum foil was taken to the moon on almost every US moon landing mission. The coin was designed by Remo Mascherini. Mintage 20,000 unc plus 5,000 proof. Image from Swissmint. Both coins are surcharged collector pieces ... Christian
What I find a little strange about the Austrian piece (which, despite the almost €70 price tag, is already sold out at the mint site) is the font, especially what it looks like on the obverse. The characters, above all the N and the A, were obviously inspired by a NASA logotype ("the worm") used between 1975 and 1992. Not in 1969. Christian
