Sometimes when I look at modern commemorative coins, it makes me wonder how ridicious commemorative coins have become. Any country can mint their own commemorative coins to celebrate any kind of events, and that can range from real stunning art to utter erm... perhaps scrap metal.

Taking the example of the bullion coins, I have no problem if they come in sizes of 1 ounce or less, but when it comes to sizes more than that, wouldn't it be better off to mint them as bullion / medal instead? Personally speaking, if a coin doesn't fit in your pocket, it shouldn't be considered as one! You might as well use a 5oz silver "coin" as a discus! It just makes coin collecting a rich man's hobby, which is not what it is supposed to be!

As I am mainly focused on Russian commemorative coins, the origins of such seem to be from German commemorative coins, and in fact, there were German mintmasters who engraved such commemorative coins in the early days of 1830s.

Question: Were the Germans one of the pioneers minting commemorative coins, and if so, on what occasion was this done? Or perhaps, who was the first to mint commemorative coins?

I assume this can be a difficult question as it depends on the defination of commemorative.

Let's see what this can lead to

I think that question takes you back to early Greece. I believe that some would describe the tetradrachms of Syracuse (ca. 380 B.C.) as commemorating the Panathenaic games. I would argue that some Roman coins should be viewed as commemoratives. After that, I think your question would have to jump to someime around post 1500? Or would you limit it to post 1800?

Actually that might be a good answer.

I suppose the next would be the British who would commemorate the Monarchy?

Commemorative coins that are dedicated to a specific current event have indeed been around for a very long time. Don't know much about ancients but in later years such an "event" could be a royal wedding, or some military victory maybe.

Also, the differentiation between a "coin" and a "medal" did not play a major role. If some metallic disk had this or that precious metal content, the question of whether it would, from today's perspective, be considered legal tender or not becomes secondary. Even in the Prussian-German Empire (1871-1918) several kingdoms, principalities, etc. issued commemorative gold and silver pieces that were not coins but to some extent used like coins.

What is (relatively) new, I think, is coins that honor, say, the 200th anniversary of somebody's birth or death. Maybe because in monarchies people who had no "blue blood" would usually not appear on coins anyway.

But even several centuries ago huge precious metal pieces existed which were of course not used for everyday payments. Think of the Spanish cincuentín silver coins of the early/mid 17th century: diameter 70 mm, weight 170 g (with variations). Those may have been used as gifts on important occasions, not to buy bread ...

Christian

Ahhh - but that is what it was supposed to be. Coin collecting isn't known as the "hobby of Kings" because poor people did it. It's known as that because Kings were the only ones who could afford to do it.

Even in today's world, only those who are as rich as Kings can collect what they want. The rest of us collect what we can.

As for modern commems - they exist for one reason - to make money. Organizations know that people like us will buy them and they will be the ones to collect the profits. If there were no profits, you can bet that they wouldn't make them.

In days past that was not the case. Commemoratives were issued by those who wished to commorate something - and the commems were produced at their own expense. They were not sold, they were given away for free to be used as a rememberance by those they were given to.

GD beat me to it!

Yes coin collecting is/was the hobby of kings, although increasing levels of prosperity (in the West at least) have taken large numbers of people some way above the subsistance line and given them something that was unheard of one hundred years ago for alot of the lower classes. 1) Leisure time and 2) Spare cash!

So over the last eight or so decades a much larger percentage of the population is able to collect coins than previously, what as also greatly helped is the move away from gold/silver to fiat currency and inflation, it means alot more people can afford to collect from change and not starve, can you imagine just pulling a dozen quarters out of change in 1906 to put in you collection? Whereas in 2006 you can pull out probably two dozen and you'd not be facing a week without food. This has allowed more people to catch the coin collecting bug.

Also don't forget the great event of 1964 in the US, or great crime as you may view it, removing silver from coinage. How many people started collecting just because they thought "hey better save some of that silver", and they got hooked.

Change creates collectors (pun intended).

So perhaps it's no longer the hobby of kings.


As for commems, well my views on those are well known. One day someone will do an ELO and commemorate a Blue Sky, heck i'd probably even buy that commem for amusement value!

Actually that's an interesting thing because the way the monarchy has been 'commemorated' or 'mourned' has changed considerably.

It was the case that in the 17th/18th and early 19th centuries that a monarch's accession, death, mental illness, recovery from sickness, jubilees etc. were commemorated in usually one of two ways.

1) A medal was produced (often in a variety of metals)
2) In rarer cases current coinage designs would be struck in another metal as a one off to give away to people, but they'd not be legal tender.


The things began to change in the Victorian period, the medals still were being produced and are generally don't recieve that much attention.

The year that changed it all was 1847, the tenth anniversary of Victoria's reign, this is when the Gothic Crown was issued, presumably commemorating ten years of her reign. So in Britain the slope to commem madness started with one of the most revered British coins of all time.

1887 was the next step in the progress, rather than issuing a one off (or in the case of the Gothic crown a two off, 1847 & 1853), they actuallycelebrated the Golden jubilee by redesigning the whole gold and silver coinage and sticking the Jubilee portrait on it.

Then followed a lull until 1935 when the rocking horse commem crown was issued for the Silver Jubilee of George V. Although it is probably worth noting that the Royal Mints fist venture in selling coins to collectors began in 1927 with the Wreath Crowns (very expensive date set as they were only issued in small quantities for people to buy at Christmas to give away as Christmas presents!) The series ended in 1936 with the death of George V.

1937 saw a crown issued and these are generally know as coronation crowns. As a coin the crown (being the size of a silver dollar were too big for everyday use and unpopular) thus minting of them was sporadic and they generally only appeared either; in the first year of a monarch's reign, or on an anniversary of their reign, or with a coinage redesign. Which means generally one would arrive every 20 or more years. Some to top up bank supplies and allow older ones to be disposed of and others for collectors.

The first totally pointless commem (which incidentally was nothing to do with the monarchy) was the 1951 Festival of Britain crown, it was sold to collectors as a collectors' coin. Although the 1951 event was a big event arranged to celebrate all that was good about modern Britain, it was a moral boosting exercise after the devastating effect of the Second World War, cities like Coventry were near bombed out of existance, rationing was still in place and the war had been over six years and people felt hard done by. So perhaps being such a big event a commem would be justified.

The 1953 crown followed the old protocol of coronation issues, the 1960 was the first proper pointless crown released for an exhibition but not particularly commemorating anything. 1965 was the first non-Royal person commem being Churchill although after his role in morality boosting the war and his lengthy role in politics for good or for bad means maybe he earned it.

The real beginning of pointlessness began in 1973 with the EEC 50p commem, but it took the mint a while to catch on. 1980 saw the Queen Mother's 80th birthday but why did she deserve to get a coin for that, it's not like she was the reigning monarch! Pointless!

Then from 1987 onwards the stupid commems came thick and fast, it all started with commemorating sports events, which should never be commemorated on coins, that's a stamp area. Then we got all these stupid birthday commems and death commems and wedding commems for various annoying royal family members and not one of them was needed. They should be the subject of tokens not coins.

Stop polluting nusmismatics with cr*p! Harsh you think? Going into commem-over kill will cause more harm to this hobby than good. Just look at stamps, once a very popular hobby then they went into commems for everything and people just gave up, if you can't keep up with the modern scene then you have a choice. 1) Move back to a classic scene but no doubt a load of collectors have already had that idea and have pushed up all the prices to the point where you can't afford it, or try and prioritise what new stuff is of use to you. There is however, the danger of becoming overwhelmed or feeling like you'll never achieve a collection with any focus or merit and thus you'll probably lose heart and jack it in as a bad job.

There is an old saying; 'too many sweets rots your teeth'.

Very interesting infomation there Aetheling! Thanks!

I certainly have to agree with this. Collectors are being overwhelmed with offerings all vying for their funds. I believe it is easy to become frustrated and just give the hobby the boot.

Just to stir the pot! UK Royal Mint is taking orders for the queen's 80th birthday crown. Make of it what you will

Romanian National Bank issued past year a gold coin commemorattig 625 years from the start of building a Bran Castle!!! Or 55 years from the foundation of NATO!!! Or 140 years from the foundation of Bucharest's University....

http://www.bnr.ro/def_en.htm and then click to Numismatics to see entire list.

Exactly my point, the commems are everywhere it's got to the point where they are no longer exceptions to be 'treasured' but these days they're more common than the 'normal' stuff, whatever that might mean these days.

Ahh jeeze even the Solar Eclipse of 1999 got commemorated!

What next? Oh i know lets commomorate SN1987A, afterall it's the 20th anniversary next year!*


*SN1987A was a supernova in the Tarantula Nebula which was first seen on earth in February 1987 and proved quite useful to scientists in clarifying a few theories regarding neutrinos. But hey if everything else is getting commemorated, why not extraterrestrial phenomena too?

On second thoughts i probably shouldn't have given them the idea...