Designer: Reijo Paavilainen
Bimetallic Gn/Cu-Ni, 35mm, 19.8g
Mintage BU 130,000 - Proof 20,000



Obverse: petroglyphs
Reverse: Nine people (9 decades of independence) rowing in unison a traditional "church boat".
Edge: Plain


Commemorates the 90th year of Finland's independence.

I wish I could say that I liked the design, but I realise it is designed to appeal to someone else's interests, and not my own

I have liked many of the Netherlands and German designs, but not all.

Ha, I have about half of that coin. On that occasion Finland did not only issue this "regional" collector coin but also a €2 commemorative coin - and that shows, on the obverse, the same "church boat" image which I find quite appealing.

Christian

Having participated in some rowing competitions using such a vessel (no easy task for amateurs I must say ), I guess it would appeal to some more than others. Like tabbs, I actually do like that portion of the design as the symbolism is fairly clear as well. What I like most about the coin is the matte finish.

As for some of the other Finn commem designs: some are ehh, some are ok, and some I actually like. But I guess I probably feel the same for modern issues of most nations nowadays.

Maybe the symbolism is deep, but the coin is ugly. 75% of the coin is plain surface. It looks like it was designed by the lazy Romanian's Mint engravers.

Now tell us what you REALLY think about the coin.
Maybe this is what is meant by closer cooperation within Europe?


I really don't find the coin "ugly" -a coin would have to be fairly atrocious for me to call it ugly, but I do understand your point. I find the coin -primarily the obverse- to be very boring. And exactly because of the reason you mentioned, lots of plain surface. Although plain surfaces are not always bad. If you remember the Swedish coin I picked up the other year; now that design makes laziness an artform.

I do think it would have been better if they had not used the €2 design and of course something compleatly different on the other side, other than that its a nice coin

The Finnish mint actually issued three coins on that occasion, with two different designs. The second design, so to say, was used for the €100 gold coin http://www.rahapaja.fi/en/documents/2232/S...land90_100E.JPG ... but the reverse looks much like Miró or Tinguely: Nice, but IMO it does not "say" 90 Years Independence to me.

And no, I don't have any problems with coins that have a lot of "empty" space. (Design wise, that is - as a collector I don't want a coin to "attract" scratches.) Sir Sisu mentioned that interesting Swedish coin; here is one from Latvia http://www.bank.lv/eng/main/all/lvnaud/jub...foreign_rulers/ that I bought a while ago. Austrian coins on the other hand are often very "full", as if the designers suffered from horror vacui ...

Christian

I realy like that Latvian coin it has style