The numismatic world’s Lord of the Rings selection expands with an impeccable issue from Mint XXI

A giant of the literary and movie worlds, irrespective of genre, J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ sequence has topped bestseller lists around the world for decades, They made the move to the big screen in 2003, with an epic trilogy helmed by Peter Jackson, which amassed 17 Oscars (including a staggeringly 11 out of 11 nominations for The Two Towers), and made $3 billion in box-office takings alone.

One of the main characters in the Lord of the Rings is Frodo, a Hobbit, who inherited the ‘One Ring’ from his uncle, Bilbo Baggins. He undertakes a quest to destroy the ring in the fires of Mount Doom, in Mordor, and the books are basically the story of that quest. It’s a popular enough story that we’re sure you know the basics already.

Frodo is played in the films by American actor, Elijah Wood, and Mint XXI’s first Lord of the Rings coin depicts him as the character, in an iconic scene from the movie. Doing faces on coins is always a mixed-bag when it comes to realism, and it’s rarely done well without the use of copious amounts of colouring, etc. To say there are no such problems here would be an understatement. The depiction is astonishing in its realism – without question one of the best we’ve ever seen on a coin. Anybody could look at this and instantly see who it was, which is quite remarkable.

The rest of the face is simply the coloured Lord of the Rings logo, with a clean background. The coin is all the better for that. It’s a Cook Islands coin, so the obverse has the effigy of Queen Elizabeth II centred on it, with the issue information inscribed around it. The coin looks well presented, and has a good-sized mintage of 2,022 pieces, sitting between the sub-1000 mintage of 2 oz coins in other genres, and the 5,000 or so of smaller Lord of the Rings coins, and it’s available to order now. Even as someone who isn’t a particular fan of the fantasy genre, I have to say this is a beautifully realised coin, and our favourite for the franchise to date.

SPECIFICATION
DENOMINATION $10 CID (Cook Islands)
COMPOSITION 0.999 silver
WEIGHT 62.2 grams
DIMENSIONS 50.0 mm
FINISH Antique
MODIFICATIONS High-relief, Colour
MINTAGE 2,022
BOX / C.O.A. Yes / Yes