Love him or hate him, and given his history, the latter would make more sense, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara has become one of the most iconic figures of the entire 20th century, perhaps of all time. He’s a potent reminder of the power of the media, with his image, based on a photograph taken by Alberto Korda, propelling him to international superstardom, despite a history of brutality. I think, personally, he was an idealist who hated the way the people of Latin America were treated and set out to make things right, but became lost in brutality as idealism supplanted realism more and more. He’s a strange character to garner this level of love in hindsight, but who ever said people were logical? After all, people bought David Hasselhoff records…

Berlin-based producer, JVP, have been around for ages, and we met them at our first World Money Fair way back in early 2014. They had an esoteric range, focused on unusual religious art, like Russian Icons, and religious architecture, as well as cartoon characters from the old Soviet block. There was even an awesome vintage poster series we had fond memories of (never did pick up that Black Cat coin), all struck by PAMP in Switzerland. They kicked off new products again, after a hiatus, with a very cool ‘Liberator’ bullion range, but now we’re back in esoteric numismatics, with ‘Che Guevara’.

In true JVP style, we have a base design, inspired by the famous Korda image of Guevara, which is then modified with ten different finishes/processes to create unique looking coins. You’ll notice the border is the same for all ten, so we’re essentially discussing the central 30 mm area, and here’s where it varies considerably.

Most of them have a polished steel element to them. Types 01 and 09 have a steel outline, Type 02 has a steel Che face, which, with types 05, 06, 08 and 10, is paired with a chunky steel surround, leaving just the hair/beret/eyes/mouth area. Type 4 just has the area surrounding the portrait as polished steel. The big distinguishing element is the infill. Bernit is a mix of tiny pieces of Baltic amber, suspended in a Damar resin, which comes in different colours. Polybern is similar, but with larger pieces of amber in a polyester resin.

Seven of the ten variants have this infill, but the other three are unique. Type 07, easily one of our favourites, eschews steel completely to go with a micro-mosaic. This isn’t struck in metal, like the Powercoin series, but has an image formed from small coloured pieces. We think it looks awesome. Types 09 and 10 both employ steel in different ways, but also use different infill, one glass mosaic, the other amber pieces. Honestly, we feel most collectors will find at least one of these that catches their eye, and every coin will be slightly different, due to the handmade nature of them.

Each coin comes in custom packaging, showing the variant you have on the lid, and there’s an enclosed Certificate of Authenticity. Mintages vary (we need to clarify types 04/05/06 and will update soon), but the total of all types is just 1,967 pieces, to mark the year he was killed. Prices will likely vary when it becomes available to order next week, and the video below is a great indicator of the level of work that goes into numismatics of this ilk. A superb release, playing to JVP’s strengths in custom finishes.