Along with their Robert Lewandowski, and The Witcher series, both extensive in scope, the Mint of Gdańsk recently added the seminal Polish science-fiction author, Stanislaw Lem to its portfolio. A quartet of quite superb silver coins kicked off the programme, with the promise of a pair of gold coins, and a pair of silver coin statues to come. The former are now here.

I’ll straight up say that I think the design is awesome, full of the style and optimism that sci-fi in the 50s and 60s was filled with, a little surprising given Lem was very much a realist. The design is a nod to his most famous work, Solaris, and the ocean world that forms the basis of it. The guilloche-style background in the border is a little overpowering, but not excessively so, and it works beautifully in the coin centre, so a trade-off worth making.

These are issued for Malta and the obverse has their neat coat-of-arms on it, laid over a molecular structure. There are two formats in the range, a one-ounce coin with a 150 mintage and a €50 denomination, and a tenth-ounce coin with a 1,000 unit mintage and a €10 denomination. This is actually the second gold coin, we haven’t covered the first yet (video below), but we much prefer this design. Available to order now.