Originators of the modern domed precious metal coin, the Monnaie de Paris kicked off what has quickly become one of the hottest trends in numismatics back in 2009, with the launch of a very cool coin to celebrate the official Year of Astronomy. Available in gold and silver, it was popular enough for the Royal Australian Mint to release their own silver three-coin series starting in 2012 and ending last year. Sport has seen a fair few domed coins over the last couple of years. Baseball, football, cricket, netball and cricket again have all been represented. This time around we’re entering the world of rugby and the Monnaie de Paris have had a brainwave.

All the domed coins to date have been round. That’s a sensible move given these are apparently far more difficult to strike without distorting than would seem at first glance. More mints have attained the necessary ability, so the Monnaie de Paris have upped the ante again. Rugby having an oval shaped ball made the choice to strike an oval coin a bit of a no-brainer. Taking that a step further and we have the world’s first silver and gold domed oval coins.

The design is extremely clever, especially on the reverse face. Depicting a scrum from above, the almost tortoise-shell shaped sporting formation is a perfect fit for the concave side. The convex side carries a rugby image, but it hasn’t been designed specifically for a concave surface. The whole coin looks bang on subject and is technically very impressive. We’ll see how long it takes for another mint to follow suit with this format. Available as a 1oz gold and as a 22.2g silver, the two coins are identical in size with the difference in weight being taken up by the greater density of gold in comparison.

In addition to these two oval coins, the mint has also released a pair of standard, flat, round gold coin in ¼oz and 5oz formats, the latter coming in at €9,700 with a mintage of just 99 pieces.  The silver will onbviously be of most interest here, selling as it does for a reasonable €66.00 and with a mintage limited to 5,000. Rugby is very popular in Europe and the Commonwealth, and along with quite a few collectors putting together sets of domed issues, it looks like this one could be a good seller. Packaged in a decent box with a certificate of authenticity, all are available to order now from the Monnaie de Paris website, and from some of their dealers.

MINTS DESCRIPTION

The Great Sports Events series
After the world cup of FIFA 2014 in Brazil, the Monnaie de Paris decided to put this year the Rugby World Cup 2015 forward. This collection distinguishes itself in four coins of collection with different face values, 500€, 200€, 50€ and 10€.

The 500€ and 200€ coins are in pure gold (999/1000) and limited in respectively 99 and 500 copies. The 50€ coin is in gold (920/1000) and is limited to 1000 copies. Finally, the 10€ coin is this time in silver (900/1000) and will be edited to 5000 copies. The peculiarities of these currencies are their convex and oval forms reminding a ball of rugby.

The coin in detail
The face of the coin shows a mêlée between two teams. In background, a ball of rugby is drawn with the extremity of the players’ feet. The other lines symbolize those of a rugby field. Finally, the official logo of the rugby World Cup is represented on the bottom of the coin.

On the reverse, we can distinguish three parts. The top of the coin carries the face value of the coin where zeros are represented under the shape of a rugby ball whereas the RF mention is represented on the low part of the coin with the trophy, the official symbol of the rugby World Cup. Both parts are drawn in order to form a ball of rugby as a third part in the center of the coin. Inside the ball is represented a player sticking his opponent on the ground. Above the heads, we perceive the top of the open-air stadium.

To know more about it
The rugby was born in 1823 while a young schoolboy named Webb Ellis have taken the ball in the hand during a match of folk soccer to bring it behind the opposite goal line and this while only the foot was authorized.

There are several variants of the rugby, in VII, in XIII or in XV but it is the last variant which is more popular and represented during world championships. Organized every four years since 1987, twenty four national teams will be in confrontation in 2015 against sixteen during the creation of this international competition.

If seven world cups were organized this day, only four nations obtained the title of champion of the world. New Zealand has two titles in the same way as Australia and South Africa whereas England obtained only one.
From September 18th till October 31st, 2015, will take place the 8th edition of this competition in England which will be for the second time the host of this tournament.

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