The Helvetic Mint are rapidly building themselves a reputation as designers of some fine high-relief silver coins. Their ‘Swiss Wildlife’ series of coins has recently seen its third release, this time featuring the Mountain Hare, with the two prior coins depicting the Capercaillie and the mad Alpine Ibex.

The  mint’s new coin is the first in a new series of ship coins catchily titled ‘Numisnautics’. The finished coin is remarkably similar in style and specification to the wildlife coins and that’s good because we’ve always liked those. Chief amongst our favourite aspects of those coins is a reverse side devoid of intrusive inscriptions. That’s not the case here, but outside of the coins composition there’s nothing spoiling the clean look of the coins most important face, unless you consider another one in the endless procession of Queen Elizabeth II effigies to be the highlight, in which case we’d suggest that perhaps commemoratives aren’t really your thing.

Coming in at an ounce of fine silver, beautifully satined and antiqued, we like this coin a lot. The Icebreaker subject is a rare one (we think the last one was a Canadian coin in 2012), the design is enhanced no end by the style used, and by early accounts, the coin shouldn’t be too expensive, coming in around the €70-80 mark. That isn’t bad for a 999 mintage coin of this style, especially with the Euro down in the dumps at the moment. Available to order now, we’ve seen it at Numiscollect and Muenzdachs, although availability will spread to other Helvetic Mint dealers quite quickly.

At present, there’s only the art image of the coin (below), even though it’s apparently shipping not far into April, and the Helvetic Mint website is a little behind on anything from 2015, but it’s a good indicator of the design, if not the Ultra High-Relief strike itself. The strike is particularly impressive as you can see from the images of the digital calipers measuring the thinnest and thickest parts of the coin. With a variation from 1.7 to 4.6mm, the higher parts of the coin are over 2½ times thicker than the low.

Fortunately, the plaster design sculpts (above) give an excellent look at not just the production process for challenging designs like these, but of the artistry that still goes into many of the new commemoratives we cover here, even in a world of CADCAM.

MINTS DESCRIPTION

Do you remember the Akademik Shokalskiy , which became icebound in East Antarctica on Christmas Eve 2013? Antarctica is the coldest and windiest place on Earth, and extreme blizzards can arise out of nowhere. Such a storm trapped the ice-strengthened ship Akademik Shokalskiy with 74 people on board: scientists, media and students aboard the ship were returning from a month-long scientific expedition that revisited sites in East Antarctica first seen by Australian explorer Sir Douglas Mawson’s team over a hundred years ago.

China’s icebreaker Xue Long and Australia’s Aurora Australis both got within miles of the stranded ship but had to turn back due to thick ice and poor weather. Unable to fly for a few days due to poor conditions, the helicopter aboard the ice-breaker Xue Long finally landed on the Akademik Shokalskiy and rescued the passengers.

Icebreaker drive in Antarctica as well as in the frozen Arctic waterways north of Russia. During the winter, the ice along the Northern Sea Route varies in thickness from 1.2 to 2.5 metres. Nuclear-powered icebreakers can force through this ice at speeds up to 10 knots (19 km/h, 12 mph).

Nuclear-powered icebreakers are much more powerful than their diesel-powered counterparts, and although nuclear propulsion is expensive to install and maintain, very heavy fuel demands and limitations on range can make diesel vessels less practical and economical overall for these ice-breaking duties.

It is extremely impressive to see Icebreaker struggling through perpetual ice areas. Since 1989 the nuclear-powered icebreakers have also been used for tourist purposes carrying passengers to the North Pole.

SPECIFICATION
DENOMINATION $2 NEW ZEALAND
COMPOSITION 0.999 SILVER
WEIGHT 31.1035 g
SIZE 40.0 mm
FINISH ANTIQUED, SATIN
MINTAGE 999
BOX / COA FRAMEBOX / YES