The Super-Deformed style of big-headed Japanese art continues to work its magic on the numismatic world, and in ever more inventive ways. We all know the New Zealand Mint’s ‘Chibi’ series is the 800-lb gorilla in the room, but others are also taking the style and running with it. LPM have their Street Fighter character coins, the Crown Mint has Marvel Mini Heroes, The Coin Company has Back to the Future, and so on, but almost all of them remain a variation on the popular culture media theme.

The concept is spreading. The NZ Mint has just started a Mount Rushmore Presidents subset, and Precious Metal Collectors recently added a Sun Wukong Monkey King character from Chinese mythology, but PMC’s latest is, in our opinion at least, a brilliant idea for this increasingly popular coin style.  The idea is a simple one – take the subjects of some of the world’s most iconic works of art, and reimagine them in the Super-Deformed style.

The first is Vermeer’s much-loved ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’, a painting that has long transcended the art world into becoming a cultural icon. The transition from European Renaissance painting to the Japanese large-eyed, big-headed SD style is superb. It’s instantly recognisable as Vermeer’s subject, but also very different. It’s a 10-gram silver coin of 26 x 35 mm dimensions, and in true PMC style, is attractively presented. Yes, the coin is gimmicky, but we don’t care, we love the idea, and the uniqueness of the implementation in the huge art-coin genre. Can’t wait to see Mona Lisa, Salvatore Mundi, or Lady with Ermine, for example. The mintage is 2,023 pieces, and it’s available to order now.