World exclusive! Perth Mints genre-founding ‘Zeus’ from Gods of Olympus is back as a limited run bullion coin

Arguably one of the most important coins in the modern collectible market to appear over the last decade, the debut issue in the Perth Mint’s ‘Gods of Olympus’ series kicked off one of the most popular genres around – the antique-finished ancient mythology coin. Continuing to this day, although having now passed the baton to the Mint of Poland and Numiscollect/CIT, this classic coin was a huge hit, spawning eleven follow on releases over the next 3 years.

In a surprise twist, this iconic Tom Vaughan design is back on a silver bullion coin. It’s a standard one-ounce 0.9999 silver coin, as with most of the Perth Mint’s output, with the bulk of the 15,000 mintage struck with a brilliant uncirculated, ‘reverse-proof’ style finish. This is the first time we’ve seen one of the 12 original designs struck like this and it looks pretty good. This makes up 13,500 coins, with the remaining 1,500 set aside to receive the antique treatment. A nice nod to the original and it’s remarkable how much of the 2014 rimless high-relief issue has been kept in the transition.

The obverse of the pair features the traditional Ian Rank Broadley effigy of Queen Elizabeth II. Tuvalu issues have yet to make the transition to the new Jody Clark variant, like their Australian compatriots. Each coin will come encapsulated.

A great idea for a bullion series and an obvious one when you see the finished result. We’re fairly safe in assuming this one will be a good seller, and feel equally safe in saying we’d expect others in the range to put in an appearance in future. The split antique/bullion finish idea is a first for the Perth Mint and will generate extra interest. This one is an exclusive release from Hong-Kong based LPM, a long-term partner with the Perth Mint. We’ve been fortunate to get permission to run with this one early, but it will be up for sale from 20 July.

ZEUS

Zeus was the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who ruled as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter. Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus’s stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione, by whom the Iliad states that he fathered Aphrodite. Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses.

He was respected as an allfather who was chief of the gods and assigned the others to their roles: “Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence.” He was equated with many foreign weather gods, permitting Pausanias to observe “That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men”. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing, striding forward with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty.

DESIGN: depicts a bearded Zeus rising up into a stormy sky wielding his thunderbolt and sceptre with an eagle flying above his shoulder. The design includes the inscription ZEUS and The Perth Mint’s ‘P’ mintmark.