Van Gogh’s seminal self portrait joins Precious Metal Collectors range of copper-cored silver coins

Seemingly on a roll at the moment, Precious Metal Collectors are adding another piece to their impressive range of large copper-cored, high-relief silver coins. Joining a range that started with the Greek god Hector, the first of the ‘Nine Worthies’, and recently continued with the debut of the Four Guardians series depicting the Azure Dragon, the latest release takes off at a tangent into the world of fine art.

Everyone has heard of Vincent Van Gogh. The Dutch Post-Impressionist painter produced an expansive body of works, including portraits, landscapes and still life’s of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, including
860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolours, drawings, sketches
and prints. One of his most famous works undoubtedly his self-portrait.

Expertly interpreted for reproduction in metal, PMC have done a great job of capturing the haunting depiction of the art worlds great icon, and they’ve thankfully kept it free of interference from inscribed information, all of which is confined to the obverse. The textured background field is also carried over onto the obverse, although this remains a simple effigy of Queen Elizabeth II. A very nice coin for the art aficionado.

As with Hector and Azure Dragon, Van Gogh has an 11.5 oz copper core, around which is struck the design in 2oz of fine silver, which then has an antique finish applied. It’s a clever way to keep the cost of a coin down while allowing them to produced something of 80 mm diameter and employing impressive levels of relief. This is another of PMC’s ‘Order of the Spectre’ designs, so will have a Certificate of Authenticity numbered in sequence from previous releases, rather than from zero. Also having a mintage of 500 pieces, it should be available to pre-order shortly, with shipping to be confirmed. An attractive release and one that makes a great change from the usual fine art coin.

MINTS DESCRIPTION

One of the world’s greatest artist, Vincent Van Gogh was a post-Impressionist painter whose work — notable for its beauty, emotion and colour — highly influenced 20th-century art. He struggled with mental illness and remained poor and virtually unknown throughout his life. Vincent van Gogh completed more than 2,100 works, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolours, drawings and sketches. Over the course of 10 years, Van Gogh created more than 43 self-portraits as both paintings and drawings.

Starting the series is The Self Portrait of Van Gogh. The self-portrait that this collectible coin is directly based on is from Spring 1887 where he painted with oil on pasteboard in Paris, France.


The 2 oz fine-silver coin is struck in a new minting technique called “Bi-Metal Plus”, that combines 11.5 oz of copper in between two layers of fine-silver resulting in super ultra-high relief while being topped off with silver antique finishing. The technique allows the coin to have an incredible weight and feel in the hand together with its 80mm diameter size. The collectible highlights the Self-Portrait painting of Vincent Van Gogh himself reimagined in 3D format with high relief in a similar brushstroke textures that is made popular by the artist. Bringing to life the painting and the artist himself from the coin. The obverse features the same brushstrokes textures as the backdrop for the legal tender.

The collectible coin will come together with the Certificate of Authenticity which its serial number will continue to run from the previous series, along with a themed box specially designed for by Order of the Spectres.