The New Zealand Mint has done a sterling job of marking the 100th anniversary of one of the giants of Hollywood – Warner Brothers. They’ve done so by concentrating on the studio’s output of iconic movies and television, from the earliest days, to the latest. They aren’t alone in celebrating, however, and surprisingly, it’s the Royal Dutch Mint doing the honours.

It starts off well, with the coin shaped like one of the early Warner Brothers shield logo’s, incorporating the famous WB inscription on it. However, the coin design seems a little too much of a corporate pat-on-the-back, rather than marking what really matters, the productions that emanated from the company. It depicts the Old Warner Brothers Studio, a movie, radio and television production facility sited on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard. It’s an important part of the corporation’s heritage, for sure, being the filming location of the first ‘talkie’, the 1927 hit, The Jazz Singer, but it doesn’t make for a coin design that evokes the glorious century long body of work that Warner Brothers have built.

In what is an ever-increasing presence in numismatic circles of late, this one-ounce 0.999 silver coin is issued for Malta, and carries the Mediterranean island’s attractive coat-of-arms on the obverse. We’re huge admirers of this European mint’s output, especially the superb Silver Ducats range, but we feel this is an uninspiring release, missing what celebrations of this Hollywood icon’s centenary should be about. Available now.