A shaped silver coin tries to do the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs in the form of Han Solo’s ship, The Millennium Falcon

The Star Wars coin tsunami continues with a shaped coin featuring one of the most famous spaceships in all of science fiction – the Millennium Falcon. This isn’t the first time the New Zealand Mint has issued a coin for this legendary icon, with a blueprint coin, a high-relief coin, and a bullion coin also having hit the market over the last four years.

This latest one-ounce coin is the most unusual, taking the ship into shaped-coin territory, although this isn’t a fully dimensional piece. It’s instantly recognisable and has a decent level of detail on the reverse face, although the obverse is, like a standard coin, populated with just the head of Darth Lizzius and the usual inscribed issue details.

A neat enough release, it comes beautifully presented and has a mintage of 5,000 pieces. There are licencing restrictions on these now, so it may be a little harder to get in some places, but no doubt the Star Wars fan will make the effort. Available from today.

THE CORELLIAN YT-1300F FREIGHTER ‘MILLENNIUM FALCON’

The Millennium Falcon is a spaceship in the Star Wars universe commanded at one time by Corellian smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee first mate, Chewbacca. The highly modified Corellian Engineering Corporation (CEC) YT-1300 light freighter first appears in Star Wars (1977), and subsequently in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Return of the Jedi (1983) and The Force Awakens (2015).

Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian in the card game ‘sabacc’. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker charter the ship to deliver them, C-3PO, R2-D2, and the stolen Death Star plans to Alderaan. When the Falcon is captured by the Death Star, the group conceal themselves in smuggling compartments built into the floor to avoid detection during a search of the ship. Solo later collects his fee for delivering them to the hidden Rebel base and departs under bitter circumstances, but returns to assist Luke in destroying the Death Star.

Solo flies the Falcon, with Chewbacca, Leia, and C-3PO aboard, to elude the Imperial Starfleet in The Empire Strikes Back, wherein they take refuge at Cloud City, where Darth Vader captures Solo. Lando Calrissian helps the others escape and, at the film’s end, he departs in the Falcon to track down Solo and his captor, Jabba the Hutt.

Calrissian again flies the Falcon during the climax of Return of the Jedi, with Nien Nunb as co-pilot, to destroy the second Death Star. Before the second Death Star is destroyed. Lando accidentally damages the ship by hitting the circular radar dish on a random pipe or circuit in the second Death Star. Lando and the others still have succes in destroying the Galactic Empire. (Source: Wikipedia)