CIT’s Topography – Grand Canyon

Description of the Coin

One side is a true-to-life, detailed three-dimensional and colored model of the Grand Canyon, inserted into a topographic map. Below TOPOGRAPHY / of the Grand Canyon / National Park 2023.

The other side features the portrait of Charles III, below DT (= Dan Thorne), around it the circumscription 25 DOLLARS CHARLES III COOK ISLANDS. The pattern in the background is reminiscent of the contour lines on a topographic map.

Cook Islands / 25 Dollars / Silver .9999 / 5 Ounces / 50 mm / Mintage 777.

Background

The very top of the coin’s surface with the topographic map was minted in proof quality. The Grand Canyon’s relief is recessed and seems to carve out the coin’s surface just as deeply as the Colorado River has carved out the earth over thousands of years. Pay attention to the rim of the coin: it is punctuated by the relief, virtually enabling the observer to look into the Grand Canyon from the side.

Given this fantastic relief, it is easy to overlook the incredibly mastery required to accurately color the mountain valleys and the river. While color application on flat and slightly bent surfaces has become a common feature by now, coloring such a fissured and recessed surface is a technical masterpiece that only very few are able to achieve.

With Grand Canyon, CIT demonstrates once again in collaboration with B. H. Mayer’s Kunstprägeanstalt, that the team of the two companies has become the coin industry’s leading incubator for coin designs, creating motifs today that will be imitated the day after tomorrow.

If you want to experience all three dimensions of this coin, you have to watch the corresponding film.