Niue kickstarts its 2019 Disney offerings with the 60th anniversary of Sleeping Beauty in proof silver

REVERSEPACKAGING

The biggest licence in coins is the New Zealand Mint’s Disney franchise, for which the mint has been pumping out coins at a fair old pace recently. We’ve covered most of them, (we’ll be cutting back a little in 2019 to increase variety), but there’s no missing Sleeping Beauty’s 60th anniversary. The beloved animated movie is done great justice with this cleanly struck proof design. A trio of movie scene spotlights makes up the reverse face artwork, with a large banner running through the centre holding the inscribed title. I know we say this often, but these coins invariably look vastly better in hand than the official release images suggest. If we can get hold of a couple of these coins, we’ll run an AgAuShoot – something we will do more of this year. Available now for $85.00 USD, it’s available only in a 1 oz silver format, with the gold not putting in an appearance. A good start to 2019.

MINTS DESCRIPTION: The coin design features beloved characters from Disney’s sixteenth animated feature film, Sleeping Beauty. It recounts the story of Princess Aurora, who is cursed by the evil fairy Maleficent to die before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. Based upon Charles Perrault’s The Sleeping Beauty, the film was first released on 29 January 1959 and had an overall budget that exceeded $6 million, making it Walt Disney’s most lavish and expensive animated feature to date. Sleeping Beauty was the last animated feature produced by Walt Disney to be based upon a fairy tale. The studio returned to the genre thirty years later with The Little Mermaid in 1989.

DESIGN: design features striking engraved images of Princess Aurora, Maleficent and the iconic “true love’s kiss” scene, along with a classic banner denoting “Disney Sleeping Beauty. The Ian Rank-Broadley effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the monetary denomination, and the 2019 year-date are shown on the obverse.

SPECIFICATION
DENOMINATION $2 New Zealand (Niue)
COMPOSITION 0.999 silver 31.1 grams
DIMENSIONS 40.0 mm
FINISH Proof
MINTAGE 10,000