Nothing gimmicky or unusual in this new Butterfly coin from Perth Mint regular artist, Jennifer McKenna, just a beautifully realised snapshot of one of nature’s prettiest creatures in its natural habitat. The species chosen is the Ulysses butterfly, also called the Blue Mountain Swallowtail, which is native to, not only Australia, but also as far afield as Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. They can grow a wingspan of up to 14 cm, and are coloured in a striking iridescent electric blue, and black.

McKenna has portrayed a single butterfly in the foreground, richly coloured, with three smaller coloured, and several uncoloured others in the background scene. This is set over bed of flowers (yellow Goodenia, and pink Euodia) that are coloured, with the rest (Cape York Lily & Bower of Beauty) antiqued like the rest of this rimless coin. It’s the kind of scene you would find in your own garden and all the better for it. A very pretty coin indeed.

The obverse is the bog-standard King Charles III effigy job the Perth Mint uses so much, but it’s difficult to call that out as a negative when its clear the reverse face is the star of the show, and the acrylic-topped box doesn’t let you see it when it’s displayed anyway.

In contrast to Jennifer McKenna’s natural look for her butterfly design, Aboriginal artist, Chern’ee Sutton has brought her native-art skills to a heavily stylised turtle. In 2025, Sutton designed the ‘Emu Utingat’ coin, which used a similarly esoteric style, and this new issue is the second she has done for the Perth Mint. She is part of an indigenous tribe called the Kalkatungu (or Kalkadoon), centred near the Mount Isa region of Queensland, and has a fine reputation, having two pieces in the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, and undertaking design work for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Her style, and that of this new Turtle Yaunati (‘to grow big’) coin, draws from traditional tribal motifs, but with a contemporary twist. For example, the coin background has several areas that seem directly inspired by the Pointillism movement. The overall layout is very serene, with the circles, and the line of turtle silhouettes hinting at movement and migration. The jellyfish is said to represent the turtle’s food source, and the line of eggs on the band of sand signifies the place the turtles first entered the world.

It’s a colourful piece of numismatic art, encapsulating the life of one of our oceans most amazing animals. It successfully does it in a distinctively Australian style, although that doesn’t extend to the vanilla obverse, unfortunately. There’s a decent display frame, although we’d like to see the mint theme these out a little better with an internal card, like so many others do (CIT, Mint of Poland, etc.) Overall, however, a fun, attractive two-ounce coin that leaves us wanting to see even more from this artist.