With the New Zealand Mint seemingly having given up on anything that wasn’t a pop-culture franchised coin release, we were pleased to see them finally release a new series with a more general them. They’ve issued from fine ones over the years, including a decent dinosaur series not too long ago, but we’re back into human history for their latest debut. Called Women in History, the series will highlight some of the most impressive women and their contributions to humanity. There’s really no better place to start than the legendary Marie Curie. Marie was a Polish physicist, who, along with her husband, French scientist Pierre, did extensive work in the fledgling field of radioactivity, culminating in a Nobel Prize for physics in 1903.

This was Marie’s first, and she won a second, for chemistry, in 1911, the first person to win two, and one of only two people to have one in different fields. Her work with radium led to her pushing for field radiological units for the French Army in WWI, to aid in the diagnosis of injuries, and by the war’s end, over a million people had been x-rayed with her equipment. She died in 1934 as a result of an illness brought on by her extensive exposure to radioactivity. Her extended family went on to be awarded with three more Nobel Prizes.

The coin is a straightforward affair, with a coloured image of Marie, over a background of her Nobel Prize Diploma. Her signature is inscribed on the uncoloured section of the coin at the top. The obverse is a simple effigy of Queen Elizabeth II, surrounded by the Niue issue inscriptions. The packaging of this one-ounce 0.999 silver coin looks excellent, but you’d expect nothing less from the NZ Mint. Available now, it has a mintage of 2,000 units, and a launch price of $89.00 USD.

LINKS: NEW ZEALAND MINT