It’s incredible to believe that a relatively minor pharoah, one that was sickly and died at under 20 years old, and one that was buried in the smallest pharoah’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, would come to be the symbol of Ancient Egypt to the modern world. The excitement around the discovery of his tomb by Howard Carter’s expedition in 1922, was simply phenomenal. The reinvigoration of interest in the old civilisation was immedaite, and hasn’t stopped to this day.

We’re going to see plenty of coins for the 2022 issue year that mark the centenary of the tombs opening, but few will be as expansive or as well done as German producer MDM’s selection. All four of the coins here are tightly themed around that iconic golden burial mask. The smallest is a simple 1 gram shaped minigold coin that for its size, has a great stab at reproducing it, even finding room for the cartouche on the obverse.

My favourite is the three-ounce silver. At 60 mm tall, it’s big enough to pack in the detail, and the antique finish is really clean, showing off the mask sans colour. Best of all, it has an awesome obverse, with a view of Carter’s dig site back in 1922 filling the face. The very limited three-ounce gold version, however, goes back to the Solomon Islands instead of Djibouti, and loses that obverse for the effigy of QEII. A shame. The gold does get a healthy dose of enamel, however, bringing the look much more in line with the ‘in your face, on your face’ original artifact. A pricey release, but clearly one that does the best job of showing off the subject as it is.

Lastly, we have the most innovative of the four coins, a chunky half-kilo antiqued silver beast with a set of five ‘puzzle’ pieces that sit over the reverse face and cover up the background right up to the mask itself. They’re replete with hieroglyphics, while the section of the reverse underneath them is occupied by images of many of the other artifacts found in the tomb, from the thousands uncovered.

All told, a fine range with no weak offerings, although we hope they issue more over the coming year with a look at more than just the mask. They should all be available to pre-order now.