What a big coin you have! Red Riding Hood kicks off Powercoin’s new Fear Tales series

A perennial children’s favourite with a dark past, it just has to be a fairy tale. One of the most popular is Little Red Riding Hood, the story of a dysfunctional family that lets its little girl wander a dark forest in a coat predators can see for miles, to visit her abandoned grandmother – or at least that’s how it would probably be spun today… 😉

The second coin this year to feature this iconic tale, Powercoin are using it to launch their new Fear Tales series and they’ve done a fine job. A visually striking design, enhanced with CIT’s smartminting technology it has an almost Escher-esque feel to it. The bright red figure in the wolf’s mouth is the perfect example of how sometimes, colour can really enhance a design. I edited this one to monochrome and it just doesn’t work as well. The sense of depth with the bottom jaw of the wolf is especially impressive. Keeping the inscriptions down to just the series title is also the way to go. The date is also there, but very unobtrusive.

The obverse, with its ‘Sadly Ever After’ sign has a background filled with the silhouetted outlines of forest trees, which ties in neatly with the theme. It’s likely the series will have different obverses for each issue as this one seems thematically linked to the reverse. The whole coin is antique finished and weighs in at two-ounces of 999 silver.

Supplied in a box with a Certificate of Authenticity, there will be a maximum of 500 pieces struck. A visually arresting release, it bodes well for future issues in a series that features a subject with surprisingly little coverage in modern numismatics. Available to order now from dealers worldwide, or from Powercoin directly. It will ship around years end.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

A European fairy tale that can trace its origins back to the 10th century, the story of Little Red Riding Hood was popularised by the Brothers Grimm, who based their version on one written by the 17th century French author, Charles Perrault.

The story revolves around a girl called Little Red Riding Hood, named after her red hooded cape/cloak that she wears. The girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her sickly grandmother. In the Grimms’ version, her mother had ordered her to stay strictly on the path.

A Big Bad Wolf wants to eat the girl and the food in the basket. He secretly stalks her behind trees, bushes, shrubs, and patches of little and tall grass. He approaches Little Red Riding Hood, who naively tells him where she is going. He suggests that the girl pick some flowers as a present for her grandmother, which she does. In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother’s house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl. He swallows the grandmother whole and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandma.

When the girl arrives, she notices that her grandmother looks very strange. Little Red then says, “What a deep voice you have!” (“The better to greet you with”, responds the wolf), “Goodness, what big eyes you have!” (“The better to see you with”, responds the wolf), “And what big hands you have!” (“The better to hug/grab you with”, responds the wolf), and lastly, “What a big mouth you have” (“The better to eat you with!”, responds the wolf), at which point the wolf jumps out of bed and eats her, too. Then he falls asleep. In Charles Perrault’s version of the story (the first version to be published), the tale ends here. However, in later versions, the story continues generally as follows:

A woodcutter in the French version, but a hunter in the Brothers Grimm and traditional German versions, comes to the rescue with an axe, and cuts open the sleeping wolf. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed. Then they fill the wolf’s body with heavy stones. The wolf awakens and attempts to flee, but the stones cause him to collapse and die. (Source: Wikipedia)