Mint of MK and The Gold Village continue their rapid expansion with another selection of new issues. You’d expect there to be either increased repetition, or a lowering of quality, perhaps, but it seems that nothing could be further from the truth. This selection of four coins exhibits some fine imagination, lots of variety, and an impressive level of minting, which you can see with the copious number of images below (a fraction of what we have).

The range of subjects is truly esoteric and imaginative. A Japanese horror scene, naval felines, Ancient Greek mythological entities, and the Zodiac, certainly represent a wide range of themes. Three of the four employ UV glow-in-the-dark colour, all are high-relief and antique finished, and sizes range from two, to five ounces. All are obviously boxed, with a neat, metallic Certificate of Authenticity, and all are available to order now.

Who doesn’t love a Samurai film? Who doesn’t get a kick out of zombies? In what looks like a mash-up between Shogun and The Walking Dead, ‘Zombified Samurai’ is a very cool interpretation of what you get when the two genres merge. Here, the samurai wears simple robes, rather than full armour, tied at the waist with rope, tinged with a blue colouration

UV colour has been used to show the more demonic side of the antagonist. In darkness, his eyes glow reddish, as does the supernatural background. The obverse is coloured, filled with multiple brain-laden skulls representing the zombie world. It’s all a fascinating take on an age-old pair of themes. It will be interesting to see if the producer carries on with the concept.

A personal favourite subject, the history of ships cats has even inspired my own take on the subject, but The Gold Village has done a terrific job with this design. The reverse face has a beautiful, high-relief cat running around the rim, gloriously fluffy, and forming a superb, detailed border. Inside of this is the coloured image of a ship, passing under the seemingly watchful gaze of its feline guardian.

The obverse features a face-on portrait of that cat, looking out through a border designed like a ship’s wheel, or even a porthole window. That same yellow hue from the coin reverse is used to colour the background around it. To complete the look, the animal’s eyes are given a UV colouring, meaning they will glow when the ambient lighting is reduced.

Everything about this one, from the high-relief, to the depictions of the cat, and even the box art, are beautifully done. It’s a credit to the mint, they can take a subject so esoteric and make a cool design with it. This is another two-ounce piece, with the 999 mintage reflecting the popularity of the subject.

A 2025 issue for some reason, there’s no getting away from the beauty of this one. Choosing to eschew the brutal, and cruel nature of the Gorgon in Greek mythology, the producer has chosen to depict Medusa as a stunning seductress, and a victim of circumstance. After all, the Greek pantheon was populated by a less than ethical bunch. The end result is gorgeous, with her iconic hair of serpents absolutely packed with layered detailing, and all of them having origins, not just plonked in the mass.

There’s no colour on her, that being saved for a small background, which serves to highlight our antagonist all the more. The obverse continues with that theme, except rather than a face, it has the national coat-of-arms of the Republic of Gabon at its centre. The lack of a coin rim works particularly well, perhaps symbolising the unrestrained creature on the coin. Whatever the case, we think this is an absolutely beautiful piece of coin art.

At three ounces, it will be pricier than the first two issues we looked at here, but not severely so, and the mintage of 333 seems a good number for it. It’s also the only issue of the four not to have UV colouring, and we’re grateful for that. This one relies on simple artistic integrity, and succeeds with ease. Beautiful.

Finally, we have the most ambitious release of the four here. Regular readers here will know of Mint of MK’s extraordinary 36-coin dragon series of high-relief coins, that comprised nine designs, each in four finishes. That series was issued remarkably quickly, and it was hinted that a new range was coming during our talks with them in Berlin. The first fruit of that new range is now here.

This will be a twelve-coin series of five-ounce silver coins, each of which will feature one of the Zodiac symbols. It’s starting off with the ram, Aries, and it’s quite an extraordinary piece. The first thing that strikes you is the classic, high-relief design of the ram’s head. It’s quite exquisite, as is the patterned background. That background has a more complex application of UV to it than the other coins here.

As the light dims, you will see the background glow with clouds of colour, mainly blues and greens. This intensifies and star constellations spring to life. It’s the perfect way to use UV for this kind of subject, invoking both the spiritual nature of the zodiac, and its supposed ties to the deep sky. Easily the best coin of its type we’ve seen so far.

A rare Niue issue from this producer, it displays the Jody Clark effigy of King Charles III on its obverse and has a mintage capped at just 99 pieces. Half of those went directly to the Asian market, so the rest of the world will be fighting over just 49 coins. On the evidence here, it seems worth the effort.