CIT@TICC: Cherry Blossom Globe. A coin in a snow globe celebrates iconic Japanese season

It’s time for the Tokyo International Coin Convention (TICC) and like at  most of the other major coin shows around the world, industry favourites Coin Invest Trust are launching a new selection of coins. We’ve already looked at a minigold (Princess Diana), a superb shaped silver coin (Remembrance Poppy) and another of their new Skyline Dollars (Tokyo), but it wouldn’t be CIT without something unusual in the mix and it doesn’t get much more unusual than this.

Snow globes were invented in 1900 by Erwin Perzy, an Austrian who came up with the idea by accident. Still produced by his grandson at the Original Vienna Snow Globes company, they continue to produce over 200,000 of these every year. Not cheap plastic knock-offs produced for a few cents, they’re all formed in glass and have been made for  some of the richest and most important people around; President Obama’s children recently recieved them.

Coin Invest Trust have partnered with the company to produce a high quality globe that contains one of their smartminted silver coins in an innovative and highly appropriate commemoration of Japan’s famous Sakura, the cherry blossom season. Smartminting here is used strictly to increase diameter and not for high-relief. The end result is a tiny 1/10 oz of silver has been stretched out to 18 mm. This is a clever product, targeted at a popular cultural event. The use of cherry blossom petals instead of the traditional snow in these globes will go down especially well in Japan where it’s being launched.

The coin is mounted in the globe and depicts a cherry tree with a couple and their dog embracing underneath it. The blossoms on the tree are coloured and some are seen falling. Issued for the Cook Islands, the obverse has an effigy of Queen Elizabeth II on it. We’re sure some coin collectors will consider this gimmicky, but coins have their place in the wider gift market as well and this is perfectly placed to capitalise on that, likely bringing in a few more collectors to the traditional coin world along the way. Available to pre order shortly, it will ship in late June/early July.