City Views, the Royal Mint’s numismatic jorney through the world’s greatest cities, heads to France to showcase Paris.
The third of the Royal Mint’s interesting, but low profile ‘City Views’ series is now available, and after London, and Rome, they’ve headed over to another hugely important European city, Paris, the capital of France. Each coin in this range features a historic view of its subject. The London coin went back to 1647 for its inspiration, and the Rome coin to the mid-19th century.
The Parisian overlook is based on a wood engraving and lithograph produced in 1900. The mint doesn’t provide a direct source this time, although it looks to be based on a work by Lucien Baylac, and shows a panorama of the 1900 Paris Exposition, the ‘Exposition Universelle’, but as you can imagine, my knowledge of the subject is extremely minimal. Google actually have a decent overview of the expo as part of their Arts & Culture program.
This is a very understated series, yet one with historical roots that seem to suit the Royal Mint especially well. Despite the reality being that 1900 Paris was probably as polluted and horrible for most in the same way that Victorian London was, there’s an elegance and tranquillity to these depictions missing from the chaotic whirlwind of the big cities today. Only the city name is inscribed on the reverse face, which keeps things nice and clean. The obverse is the usual simple effigy of King Charles III.
The format range mirrors that of Rome, dropping the 1 kg silver variant that was part of the debut London line-up. Strangely, there’s still a 1 kg gold, marked up at £77,565, and that’s joined by 5oz, 2oz and 1oz versions, the cheapest of which is £2,770. Silver has the same three sizes, with prices of £487.50, £195.00, and £103.50 respectively. All are boxed with a Certificate of Authenticity, and available now.
GALLERY
| DENOMINATION | COMPOSITION | DIAMETER | FINISH | MINTAGE |
| £1000 UKP | 1005.00 g of 0.999 gold | 100.0 mm | Proof | 3 |
| £500 UKP | 156.30 g of 0.9999 gold | 50.0 mm | Proof | 31 |
| £200 UKP | 62.42 g of 0.9999 gold | 40.0 mm | Proof | 131 |
| £100 UKP | 31.21 g of 0.9999 gold | 32.69 mm | Proof | 160 |
| £1000 UKP | 156.30 g of 0.999 silver | 65.0 mm | Proof | 181 |
| £1000 UKP | 62.42 g of 0.999 silver | 40.0 mm | Proof | 1,006 |
| £1000 UKP | 31.21 g of 0.999 silver | 38.61 mm | Proof | 2.010 |
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