I was just wondering after I looked at the State quarters that I got from Art some time ago. When I looked at them, I thought they look fantastic. There is something that popped that in my mind, and it seemed that extremely large countries such as US, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Australia, China and such have themes of different states / territories / province and such which makes it quite interesting. I believe the common relationship between all large countries is that all large countries have different cultures throughout the land and hence subjectable to a wide variety of law and such.

I was just thinking - why do we commemorate such and what is the first country that commemorated such? I am thinking Germany for some reason. Give your opinions. I just find them fascinating.

Here are some examples:

Australia - New South Wales


Canada - British Columbia


Russia - Moscow emblem


You can see more of them in my site by the way (didn't feel like cluttering up the whole page for illustrations )

Canada did the provinces and territories in 1992 (Nunavut didn't come into existence until 1999)
US started their state quarter program in 1999
Germany is currently doing theirs on the 2 Euro coins, and that will run for quite a while, as they are limited to one per year.

I'm not sure about the other ones, as I don't have any from the Russian or Mexican series. Based on my limited knowledge, Canada is in the lead. Anyone else care to add to it?

It's a good question and quite interesting. I think the separate cultures within a larger society goes way way back far before there was coinage to commemorate these differences.

Mexico did an 1oz silver series (10 peso), and a 100 peso gold/silver coin for the Mexican States the series ended in dec 2007

In the modern age, they make what they think they can sell. Sadly, it's that simple.

In days gone by, they devised designs to honor people, places, things and events. Those days are no longer with us.

Here is a romanian commem coin: Stephan's Moldavia Romania's forever (this coin celebrate the return of Romanian administration in Moldavia in 1941 a year after the Soviet occupation)

And a medal-coin (equivalent of gold 20 lei) "ARDEALUL NOSTRU" (our Transylvania) celebrating the return of NW Transylvania to Romania in 1944:

(this gold coin image is from http://www.geocities.com/romaniancoins/ )

My daughter still gets flustered trying to explain where she was born, in the last 150 years it has been part of the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Moldavia etc. Kto znaya?

Moldavia was vasal state of Ottoman Empire, not part of it (as Bulgaria or Serbia for example).

Or Suzerzain, or tributary state. Whatever you wanna call it, sure got kicked around a lot.

Oh, c'mon. In 1917 Saxony wanted to issue a coin to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Reformation. It should have shown Martin Luther and the "Ein feste Burg" (A mighty fortress) motto. But no, that was not possible - partly because then a "non-royal" would have been depicted on a coin (legally possible but frowned upon). The other reason was that the motto would have been "too Lutheran" at a time when religious peace was wanted in order to win a military war. And thus the "Friedrich der Weise" coin was issued - a great design but politically a lousy compromise.

Prussia had plans to issue a Bismarck commem in 1915 (100th anniversary of Bismarck's birth) but it turned out that these coins would have been far more popular than some others featuring Emperor Wilhelm. Maybe they would even have sold ten times as many. Bismarck ten times as popular as the Kaiser? That had to be prevented - and thus the plan died ...

So yes, mints nowadays issue more coins that they want to make money with, even if there is no particular occasion. On the other hand, the days of such (Bismarck/Luther) considerations are no longer with us either. Political considerations, yes. But none of that kind.

Christian