Time for the release of the penultimate coin in the ten-piece Mint of Austria series that looks at the nine regions of Austria through the imagination of children. The series is usually called Austria: Piece by Piece, but at other times we’ve seen it referred to as ‘Federal Provinces’, or even ‘Austria By Its Children’. If you noticed it’s a ten-coin series and there are only nine provinces, it’s because the last coin looks at Austria as a whole.

Upper Austria is the featured province this time and as expected, the series again follows tradition with one side depicting a site or cultural object considered to be of “intangible cultural heritage” by UNESCO, in this case the Glöcklerlauf, a race held in early January where the competitors wear weird headgear that lights up. The quite beautiful village of Hallstatt is on the other face of the coin, and that is also a UNESCO World Heritage site, easy to see why in the image above. As before, one side (the headgear one) is designed by a schoolkid, this time Klara Baumgartner, while the other side is designed by mint heavyweights Thomas Pesendorfer and Herbert Wahner.

Free of colour and adornment, these cleanly struck sterling silver coins have all been refreshingly different, and deservedly popular. A collectors box is available to hold all ten coins, but each individual one comes in the usual little red Austrian Mint box that personally, we quite like. A numbered Certificate of Authenticity is included. Shipping from 01 June, this one is a little pricier than the last by €3, now selling at €39.30, no doubt due to the recent bump in the spot price of our favourite shiny stuff. The budget minded might prefer a 999 copper version with a 130,000 mintage which is available for just €10, that price not having changed since last time. Just one coin to go in this decidedly different take on Austria’s heritage.

MINTS DESCRIPTION

From the spectacular peak of the Dachstein to the UNESCO World Heritage beauty of the lakeside town of Hallstatt, from the banks of the Danube, the Traun and the Inn to the Bohemian Forest, Oberösterreich (Upper Austria) has something for everyone. Featuring on the ninth coin in the Austrian Mint’s educational Austria Piece by Piece series, Oberösterreich is the last of Austria’s nine provinces to be celebrated by the children who call it home.

Located in the central-northern part of Austria, bordering Germany and the Czech Republic, Oberösterreich is the country’s fourth-largest province by area and the third by population. The church on Pöstlinberg Hill in Linz, the provincial capital, features on the coin’s reverse, along with Mount Traunstein and Lake Traunsee, in a design by Klara Baumgartner from Dachseberg high school. Her design also features the legendary Glöcklerlauf, a traditional race in which the participants wear spectacular headdresses that light up the dark winter evening of the 5th of January every year, and was deemed Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2010. The picture-postcard town lakeside town of Hallstatt, which graces the coin’s obverse, is also part of a UNESCO World Heritage site.

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