Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i World Coin News

Recently we had a question from our readership regarding purchasing the new issue coins we feature in our articles and Coin of the Year awards program coverage. The first clarification to be made is that our company does not buy and sell coins; we leave that to our advertisers. Which leads us to the matter of how collectors find the coins they seek, in particular how do they find the modern commemoratives we write about in this magazine. A couple of issues back in World Coin News I touched on the subject of how to go about collecting modern issue coins. My advice was specific to one country, however, the same advice holds true for most country issues and in particular for COTY caliber coins, so I’ll share it with…

During the 19th century one of the most interesting topics for Russian numismatists was the special coinage struck in Crimea during 1787 and 1788. This peninsula, which juts into the Black Sea, had long been a possession of the Ottoman Turks, but in the eighteenth century the rulers of Moscow, especially Peter the Great (1689–1725), moved southward in an effort to reclaim what was once Russian. Under Catherine the Great (1762–1796) these efforts bore fruit and the Russian Empire moved ever closer to the Turkish frontier, just above the Crimea. In April 1769 Catherine ordered the invasion of Moldavia-Wallachia, a region roughly corresponding to modern Romania. One of the provisions of the Treaty of 1774, ending this latest Russo-Turkish War, was the stipulation that Crimea be semi-independent under the rule…

On Feb. 2, 2023, Künker’s Berlin Auction Sales finally took place again in the context of the World Money Fair in Berlin. It was an auction sale like those in the good old pre-COVID days – with a room that was crowded with more than 150 on-site bidders so that you really had to look for it if you wanted to spot an empty seat. The result was correspondingly impressive. For the 730 lots estimated at 6 million euros that were auctioned off, Künker realized a total result of almost 10 million euros. Particularly remarkable were all the hammer prices in the five- and six-figure range. 15 lots were sold for six-digit sums alone. This auction review presents the three most expensive lots from catalog 379 with another part of…

CURRENCY UNION PROPOSED They appear to be strange bedfellows, but Spanish speaking Argentina and Portuguese speaking Brazil are proposing a currency union. In an op-ed appearing in the January 21 issue of Argentina’s Perfil newspaper Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentine President Alberto Fernandez wrote, “We decided to advance discussions on a common South American currency that can be used for both financial and commercial flows, reducing operational costs and our external vulnerability.” The article continues, “We intend to overcome the barriers to our exchanges, simplify and modernize the rules and encourage the use of local currencies.” On January 23 Lula said, “If it were up to me, we would always trade in the currency of the other country so we wouldn’t have to depend on the…

Gender identity is in the news again, this time in the not so public pages of Iron Age numismatics. It is being suggested that the image of the god Apollo on a Celtic coin was deliberately changed to make him look more like a goddess, or at least gender neutral. The coin is a Broad Flan gold stater, struck in the late 2nd century B.C. by the Bellovaci of Picardy, northern France, and due to be sold by Chris Rudd in Norwich, 14 May 2023. Director Elizabeth Cottam says: “In 1993 we thought Apollo looked so effeminate on the coin we changed its name to ‘Gallo-Belgic Goddess’. Since then, we’ve taken a more nuanced view of his long hair and long hairpin and no longer refer to him as a…

Susan Taylor spent 33 years at the Royal Canadian Mint. She began that time in 1981 as an Engraver working with oil based clay and waxed plaster. By the time she retired in 2017 Taylor, as Senior Engraver had adopted new technologies and guided the RCM into a modern age of digital design. How does a career like that begin? As most of our careers have, at the kitchen table, as Taylor explained, “From early childhood I have always had an interest in creating, drawing and coloring. At age 11, I distinctly remember assembling a montage of found objects from the garden on a piece of paper at the kitchen table. It was a turning point for me because creating something 3 dimensional with relief and texture was a novel…

There are several ways of writing Arabic. It can be done in horizontal lines, starting at the upper right, proceeding to the upper left, going back to the right, starting the next row down. Like the Indo-European writing systems work. Row after row, top to bottom. The other way is the words, and letter groups, start out anywhere and continue anywhere on the page, or coin, or whatever it is. For example, if the word “Sultan” is at the bottom of the coin, and the guy’s name above it. You start reading by looking down, then you have to look up to get to his name. The lifted eye is a grateful eye. One lifts one’s eyes to Heaven, from which comes one’s Salvation. So, reading the coin “becomes” an…