Despite the high-profile launch of such eagerly awaited coins as Tiffany, Mongolian Wildlife and Coin Invest Trust’s experimental releases, the item that caught my eye the most in Berlin was the relaunch of a minor two-year old coin, Chinggis Khaan, issued for the Asian state of Mongolia. The big news from CIT at the show was the public launch of SmartMinting, a technique allowing hitherto unprecedented levels of intricate relief on smaller coins, amongst many other benefits. Applied to a range of their new coins, CIT took the inspired step of using it on a previous release to ably demonstrate the benefits of the process in comparison to traditional strikes.
The coin reverse is a representation of the head of what is the world’s largest equestrian statue, built in Mongolia, of its most famous son, Chinggis Khaan, the head of the Mongol hordes that went on to carve out the world’s largest contiguous land empire. The statue itself is a huge and stunning work of art formed in stainless steel, and of a scale hard to imagine. Frankly, it’s a fantastic subject for a coin, full of angular detail, formed in metal, and a figure of immense fascination around the world.
The new issue is an almost identical design to the 2014 coin, but has a look that is simply worlds apart from its older brother. Sat in the display cabinet on the CIT stand, it almost looked like the face of the Khaan was following you around and staring back at you. It’s hard to describe, but it was one of the highlights of the show for me personally. Struck in an ounce of fine silver, the coin is boxed in one of CIT’s customised wooden boxes, and comes with the obligatory Certificate of Authenticity. We like this one immensely and will definitely pick one up. Outside of putting the date on the obverse, we wouldn’t change a thing and highly recommend a look at one yourself.
CHINGGIS KHAN EQUESTRIAN STATUE
The Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue, part of the Genghis Khan Statue Complex is a 40-metre (131Â ft 3 in) tall statue of Genghis Khan on horseback, on the bank of the Tuul River at Tsonjin Boldog (54Â km (33.55Â mi) east of the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar), where according to legend, he found a golden whip. The statue is symbolically pointed east towards his birthplace. It is on top of the Genghis Khan Statue Complex, a visitor centre, itself 10 metres (32Â ft 10 in) tall, with 36 columns representing the 36 khans from Genghis to Ligdan Khan. It was designed by sculptor D. Erdenebileg and architect J. Enkhjargal and erected in 2008.
Visitors walk to the head of the horse through its chest and neck, where they can have a panoramic view. The main statue area will be surrounded by 200 Ger, yurt camps, designed and arranged like the pattern of the horse brand marks that were used by the 13th century Mongol tribes. The cost of the complex is reported to be $4.1 million, spent by The Genco Tour Bureau, a Mongolian company.
The attached museum has exhibitions relating to the Bronze Age and Xiongnu archaeological cultures in Mongolia, which show everyday utensils, belt buckles, knives, sacred animals, etc. and a second exhibition on the Great Khan period in the 13 and 14th centuries which has ancient tools, goldsmith subjects and some Nestorian crosses and rosaries. Next to the museum there is a tourist and recreation center, which covers 212 hectares (520 acres).
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MINTS DESCRIPTION
The latest coins in honour of Chinggis Khaan, who led the Mongolians to a united empire from 1206 to 1227, combine classic design with state-of-the-art technology.
The 2016 edition of the silver coin is a new release of the collector’s piece which was introduced and sold out in 2014. The partially coloured relief was a numismatic highlight back then.
The new issue is a technical masterpiece because smartminting has enabled a relief which is twice as high as the previous coin.
HALF GRAM GOLD
Coin Invest Trust have always been huge proponents of the diminutive half-gram gold coin and it’s looking like they were correct to have such a huge belief in the format. More and more mints are releasing versions of their coins in this size including the Perth and Royal Canadian Mint’s, Treasures of Oz, the New Zealand Post, and several others, including a mint yet to embrace the format that has four very cool little coins coming out later this year.
Allowing people to own gold at a low price, even if not a great value, is key to their success as, especially with buyers that aren’t coin collectors, gold still has a cachet that silver simply can’t match.
Why have the gold pieces not been done in SmartMinting? A smaller palette seems to lend itself well to that technology.
Gold is being experimented with at the moment, but the half-gram gold is incredibly thin. This one has a huge amount of detail for 11mm, but high-relief is unlikely given there is literally no material to work with. The technique does have huge potential for gold however.