After releasing a superb, but expensive, dinosaur coin just a couple of weeks ago, the Royal Canadian Mint has issued a dino coin with a more affordable price tag, and it’s one that also employs the considerable talents of Canadian palaeoartist Julius Csotonyi. As you can see, the inimitable T. Rex is back in the spotlight, this time sporting a new colouration pattern.

There’s considerable speculation on exactly what T. Rex looked like. It’s hard to tell, given its lifestyle is also the subject of much debate, and it isn’t just the colour that’s in question. Did it have lips to cover its teeth, were there any feathers in certain places, etc. The scheme here looks credible, for sure, especially in the forested environment the coin places the behemoth in.

The world’s greatest terrestrial predator is not alone on the coin. In the sky is another giant, Quetzalcoatlus Northropi, the biggest pterosaur yet found, although Hatzegopteryx may have been heavier. I’m less convinced by the colour scheme here, although like T. Rex, nobody knows what colour it actually was. It’s also posed quite acrobatically, something I understand would also be less likely, but there’s so much speculation on these things, right and wrong are very subjective. What I do know is that T. Rex has nothing to fear from it, with the 250kg pterosaur having about as much chance of taking down an 8,000kg Rex, as I do of turning down a kebab…

Whatever the case, it’s a great-looking coin, and the UV colouring that shows the skeletal structure under black light, is a cool touch. The obverse is the basic one, featuring the RCM’s own, Steve Rosati penned effigy of King Charles III. It comes boxed with a COA, and is available to order right now.