Star Wars 40th anniversary celebrated with new classic movie poster silver coin series

The New Zealand Mint are increasing the choice of Star Wars themed commemorative coins with the launch of a whole new series. Standing alongside their Star Wars: A Force Awakens, Rogue One, and the flagship Classic Star Wars range, the 40th Anniversary Poster series is a new direction for the franchise. Instead of concentrating on the movies or the characters, these new rectangular silver coins look at the classic artwork used on the movie posters.

Apart from the shape the coins are pretty much standard New Zealand Mint fare. Struck in an ounce of silver, coloured on the reverse face and being issued for Niue Island are all hallmarks of this Auckland-based company. The mints excellent acrylic display frames are also present and we’re huge fans of these. Movie memorabilia collectors like to display their items far more than coin collectors do, so this is a sensible nod to the intended market, although there’s much here for the numismatist to like.

Star Wars movie posters are almost as iconic as the movies themselves and fit into a huge back tapestry of art and design that has built up around these hugely popular movies. Between the characters, settings, vessels and everything else that has made this universe a part of popular culture, there’s a huge wellspring of material to choose from. The choice of movie posters for the subject matter is an excellent one, given that their purpose is to encapsulate everything about a movie in a single piece of art.

The first in a series, these will likely be very popular with the Star Wars crowd. We think the New Zealand Mint has done a better job with this licence than Star Trek has experienced, Classic Star Wars in particular having enjoyed a universally high standard of design and execution. There will be more coins in this series released through 2017, they are themed for the 40th anniversary after all. This original movie coin will be available from 10 May and has a price of $85.00 USD and a mintage of 10,000.