The underwater world is brought to life with the third of MDM’s attractive nautical silver coins

Everyone loves a shark coin, don’t they? A primal beast that for millions of years has sat at, or near the top of the marine food-chain, the shark has an appearance that is instantly recognisable and utterly beautiful. It also seems to be an animal that is hard to do well on a coin. It’s body has an iconic silhouette, but is very smooth and short of textural detail. MDM got around that last year with a striking open-mouthed Great White bursting through water formed from a blue enamel. It was certainly effective, and after an outstanding Sea Turtle issue, the series is back for a third release with the Dolphin.

Utiling the same style, the blue translucent enamel water surrounds a playful Dolphin, surrounding beneath it a selection of marine flora and corals. It’s a nice depiction of this much loved mammal and because of the high-relief strike, exhibits a lot of three-dimensionality. The relief reaches 5mm in places and the reverse face is concave underneath the enamel. My personal favourite in the series is still the Sea Turtle perhaps, but all three of the coins released to date look to be of a very high quality.

An outer ring, maybe in a nod to the ships porthole, is strong and defined – clearly part of the whole design rather than just an afterthought meant to hold the inscriptions. This one also does that, of course, but also contains some small privy-like marine creatures. It’s one that is fundamentally common to the series.

As before, this is issued for Barbados, but despite that nations Commonwealth status and history, there’s no effigy of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse. Instead, the centre section features the island nations emblem, which is appropriately enough, aquatic in them. Surrounding that, in a central ring, is a band of sea-life images that is packed full of detail and common to the series. Around that again, is another ring that hold the series title and composition inscriptions.

The whole three-ounce silver coin is antique-finished. These seem to retail for around 300 Euros and come presented in a wooden box along with a certificate of authenticity. The serial number is engraved on the edge of the coin and the mintage is capped at 999. We’ve added images of all three coin lower down so you can see just how fine a set this is growing into. Not a cheap one, but something quite different. Available now.