Archive: People and Markets

€150,000 each: The World’s Most Expensive Euro Coins – They Really Exist!

A six-figure sum for a single euro commemorative coin? Stories like this repeatedly grab headlines – most recently with rumours of a commemorative issue honouring Cristiano Ronaldo. But which price records for euro coins are actually realistic?

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Ra 3,000 years ago and now – a picture of Ra and Amon in the tomb of Ramses IV. Image: Riccardov via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.5.

Pobjoy Mint Features Egyptian God Ra

The Egyptologist Thomas Young made significant contributions to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics. On the occasion of his 250th birthday, Pobjoy’s releases its 2023 Egyptian Gods Series. The third coin in the series features the God Ra.

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In Love With Japan

This year, Andrea Pancheri attended the Tokyo International Coin Convention for the first time on our behalf – and was absolutely thrilled by both the country and the event! Find out why here.

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A view of the exhibition. Image: Ellen Richardson/Dumbarton Oaks.

Striking Designs – Exhibition at the Dumbarton Oaks

A new special exhibition is on view at the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington D.C. „Striking Designs: Communicating Through Coins” explores what the images on coins can tell us about the late Roman and Byzantine empire.

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Archive: Coins, Medals and more

Napoleon III, painting by Alexandre Cabanel, around 1865. It was the favourite portrait of Empress Eugénie because it was the most accurate depiction of him.

French History in Coins – Part 3: A New Napoleon

Under Emperor Napoleon III, France experienced an economic upswing. The Paris cityscape was completely revamped, just as coin designs. The gold rush in the US thrust Europe’s silver money into a crisis. The answer came from France.
Karl Ludwig von Bruck, the mastermind behind the Vienna Coinage Treaty. We chose not to depict Emperor Franz Josef I at this point, who is shown on the coins, but the liberal politician Karl Ludwig von Bruck. Born into the family of a bookbinder in Elberfeld (now Wuppertal, Germany), he worked his way up from a merchant’s position to become Austria’s finance minister. He could almost be described as a beacon of hope for Austrian economic policy. It was tragic – and not just for him personally – that Franz Josef “ungraciously” dismissed him in April 1860 on false suspicions. The then 61-year-old took his own life. This deprived Austria of an imaginative politician who might have prevented its economic marginalization by Prussia.

A War Fought with Unusual Weapons: How Prussia Used Finance and Politics to Force the Habsburg Hereditary Lands Out of the German Confederation

On 26 March 2024, the Künker auction house will offer the Tursky Collection with coins of Emperor Franz Joseph I. We use specimens from this collection to tell the story of how Prussia used its economic sway to become the sole hegemonic power in Germany.
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