Archive: People and Markets

Austria’s Black Hole 20-euro silver-coin.

And the Champion of the 40th COTY Is…

At the ANA in Pittsburgh, an Austrian coin has earned top honors in the 40th Coin of the Year (COTY) Awards. See all the winners here.

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Bulgaria Will Adopt the Euro in 2026

The euro area is expanding: On June 4, 2025, the European Central Bank confirmed that Bulgaria meets the requirements for joining the eurozone. This clears the way for the introduction of the euro on January 1, 2026 – provided that preparations can be completed in time.

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Die Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (in der Mitte) ist das höchste Gebäude in Harare. Foto: Baynham Goredema aus Johannesburg, Südafrika / CC BY 2.0

Zimbabwe’s New Currency: Is the ZiG Doomed to Fail From the Start?

Zimbabwe has introduced a new currency that is supposed to win the trust of Zimbabweans as it is backed by gold. Michael Alexander explains the background and presents the new banknotes.

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United States Department of State, Washington. Image: AgnosticPreachersKid via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Is the State Department funding a crusade against private ownership of cultural goods in the U.S.? Peter Tompa explains how taxpayer money was used to justify cultural property Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) or “emergency import restrictions.”

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Archive: Coins, Medals and more

A Medal Made by Dürer as the Official Gift of the City of Nuremberg for Charles V

On 29 January 2025, auction house Künker will be auctioning an object of major art-historical importance in Berlin: the very Albrecht Dürer himself had been commissioned by the Nuremberg City Council to create the dies for medals that were to be officially handed to Charles V during his entry into the city in 1521.

State-of-the-Art Minting Technology

Colours, special shapes, inlays, micro inscriptions, latent images and holograms – many technologies are used on commemorative coins today. In this article, we give you a little overview of the different technologies that are currently applied in the coin producing industry.
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