Finland is going to issue a new commemorative €2 coin this year, dedicated to the European Union Presidency. Currently Austria has that "job" (and the country issued a €5 coin on that occasion); between July and December it will be Finland's turn.

As far as I can tell, this is an inivitation to a design competition --
(Finnish) http://www.mint.fi/fi/tiedotteet/1440/
(Swedish) http://www.mint.fi/se/pressrelease/1441/

-- but my Finnish is practically non-existent. Now my Swedish ... well, I can at least recognize enough words to know what the press release is about. Do we have anybody here who speaks any or both of these languages?

(Edit: Seems that the Finnish Mint is going to issue a €5 collector coin, not a €2 commem, for the Presidency.)

Christian

A person could make a significant collection of 2€ coins. I'm sure it's to the point that it would be quite a challange to master and keep up with. Many of the coins are really beautiful.

Currently such a collection is still doable. So far 17 of those €2 commems have been issued by the euro countries. http://europa.eu.int/comm/economy_finance/...ve_coins_en.htm (Not really great images, I know.) Theoretically there could be 15 new pieces every year - one per country. However, some governments have not joined the bandwagon yet. Also, if the mintage figure of one issue is very high, the issuing country has to "pause", see Greece. What I like about the special €2 coins is that they are legal tender in all of Euroland - unlike the collector coins.

And quite a few of them actually circulate, at least to some extent. Of course there are exceptions; if I have to pay more than 10 euro for a San Marino €2 commem in a blister pack because they are not available as "raw" pieces, that pretty much defeats the purpose ...

The Finnish Mint seems to follow a "middle of the road" strategy: The mintages of those commems are not extremely high (even in FI you won't find many in circulation, I suppose) but not very low either - so there is a fair chance of getting them at a neat price outside Finland too. And the two Finnish €2 commems issued in 2004 and 2005 look good!

Christian

Thanks for the info. It does appear to be a doable task at this point. I think that I'll give it a go.

Well, you recognized the main thing you need to know. The rest of the info just details who is organizing the competition, who will judge, deadline for entries, etc.


This will be the second time that it has been done. Finland issued a "circulating" commem for the first time that it hosted the EU Presidency in 1999. Here is the proof version of the coin:

I am attempting it. However, I am excluding all the Vatican and Monaco type coins.






I have found both 2004 and 2005 commem versions in circulation. Mind you, not too often. In fact I came across a 2004 just the other week.

Why are you excluding the Vatican and Monaco coins? Too hard to find or too expensive or ?

Partly because they are expensive. The main reason however is because they do not issue coins intended for normal circulation. The coins issued by these countries are only in sets and so I do not consider them to be "regular" issue Euro coins.

Not 100% on this topic but, the 2€ coins that are issued for circulation by each country.

1) Is there a new design for each country each year?

2) Does the country issue more than one 2€ circulation design per year?

The "regular" country specific designs are not changed, except for cases when (in monarchies) the effigy of the head of state needs to replaced or modified. Of course the other euro countries may introduce new designs too, but I think there is a moratorium (until 2008 or so) for these cases.

As for (2), could happen, yes. The Vatican did that last year, for example - it first issued the "circulation" coins with John Paul II. When JP died, the Vatican had a whole Sede Vacante set made, including a Vacant See €2 coin. (Now the Vatican does not actually issue any circulation coins, only sets of coins that could theoretically be used in circulation .) But I suppose that, if some king or queen dies, the affected country may issue a new type in the same year.

That does not apply to Finland. The Finnish government may decide later, when it puts the "new map" on the common side of its coins, to also modify the country specific sides according to the conclusions of the European Council. (That applies to some other euro countries too.) But that would be a one-time change ...

Christian

Thanks for the info. I'm considering a second set of 2€ coins consisting of the circulation, ie non-commemorative, pieces from each country.

As tabbs said, no.

However, if you include the commemorative issue for the year then there could well be 2. For both 2004 and 2005, Finland issued a commemorative piece for circulation in addition to the normal issue for each year. And the same will be done this year. In that way you could say that some countries issue two designs that circulate in a year. Strictly speaking, there is only one primary design per year as tabbs has said.

I'm still formulating in my mind (a scarry place) what I want to do with this. I was originally thinking of a custom Dansco album with the 2€ commems. Then I thought of a second album with the circulation 2€. Now I'm thinking of a page with the circulating and commem coins side by side. I'm of course assuming that they're all the same diameter.

Right, all the €2 have exactly the same specifications. (Otherwise they would not work in vending machines for example .) The only things that vary from issue to issue is the country specific sides and the edge inscriptions.

Christian

Seems that Finland will issue a collector coin, instead of a €2 commemorative coin, on this occasion. Oh well.

http://www.mint.fi/fi/tiedotteet/lehdistonosto/

Do we have anybody here who could tell us what that press release says? The Swedish version, which I might understand to a limited extent at least, is not available yet ...

Christian

With the term juhlaraha being used here, it does appear that it will be some type of collector coin.




Not sure how much detail you would like. Not much info in the way of when, how many, denomination, etc. (It does suggest to write to the Mint's PR dept for such info. )

Basically it says that 27 entries were received by the deadline and Reijo Paavilainen's entry "Echo" was chosen as the winner. (He has designed numerous other Finn commemoratives.) Then it goes on to name the 2nd and 3rd place entires and details the members of the judging board. The coins will be available for viewing as before so we shall see if the Superhero has time do his stuff again.

That would be very interesting indeed - if you manage to get there during the days when they show the designs. Thanks for the explanation! Oh, and I just noticed that this will probably be a €5 coin:

http://www.numismatico.de/files/fi-5euroneuv_183.jpg
http://www.numismatico.de/files/fi-5euroneur_136.jpg

Don't know where that site got the images from. Maybe they did write to the PR department.

Christian

A very interesting design.

There is now an english language version of the press release.

Thanks! But now I have one more question ... The press release says: "Its highly interesting letter pattern has been realised in an exiting fashion and its message is ambiguous and intriguing."

Well, I guess they meant "exciting" and not "exiting" but do you recognize a message in that letter pattern? Assuming the design that I posted the link to is the actual winner of the contest, those characters do not seem to be words ...

Christian

I will agree with intriguing but not exciting nor exiting.






Working from the title of the work "Echo", I can only hypothesize that perhaps the letters have no real pattern as such, but perhaps symbolize some word/phrase and is "echoed" in the various languages of the Union?

And yes, the winner is the one you posted. The same image, though smaller, is on the Mint's retail net site.

Last week I went to see the other proposals that were submitted for this commemorative coin competition. In addition to the winning entry there were the runners-up and others:


2nd place:


3rd place:


Honorable mention



sample1
sample2
sample3
sample4
sample5
sample6

Unfortunately a few came out blurry. There were other proposals but I did not take individual photos of them all.

Hey, thank you very much - very interesting! And I agree with the jury. The first prize is the best design in my opinion, closely followed by #2.

The third prize, well, that looks like Europa as a bullfighter. And the second honorable mention is interesting, with the arch and the view, but I don't quite understand what that pen is supposed to represent ...

Oh, and - do you have any idea why "sample 4" says 50 euro?
Anyway, thanks again, and now enjoy your vacation!

Christian

Very interesting designs. I'm surprised that the fisherman sample didn't win. There are a lot of fishermen and fisherwomen out there.

http://www.euronumis.com/?p=264

Credit to the photographer duly given as usual.

Christian

Personally I like the OWL very much!!! Does anyone know any info about a new $5 euro being released in Finland as I haven't seen anything but have received news of such? This one would be bimetallic!

Don't think that Finland issues dollar-euro coins. But I believe this one (EU Presidency) will have a bimetallic look again. The two earlier €5 coins from Finland, issued in 2003 and 2005 were bimets; the Åland coin was probably an exception (also with regard to the Swedish text) ...

Christian

Ahh, I see you found them! I took the photos the same day that I got sick, but never got around to posting them here as we left to Switzerland basically right away after we got well.

Yes, it will most likely be a bimetal, or than (though less likely) a single metal like the Ahvenamaa coin. A couple of years ago the Finance Minister stated its intent to limit the number of silver commemoratives coins to 2 per year. And we have our 2 for this year already.

Yes it will be a bi-metal coin. In fact I just received the product news letter from the Mint. In addition to the €5 issue, the coin will also be issued as a €50 silver/gold bi-metal.

Seems that this will be the piece(s):

http://www.numismatico.de/files/fi-50_346.jpg
(I hope the links works without being logged in over there ...)

Christian

It's a nice design. I guess they gave up on the 2€ piece.

OK, the Mint's overproduction has made this a bit confusing I am sure but there will be a special €2 coin for this year. The image that Christian posted is for the €5 and for the €50 gold/silver bi-met. These coins are being struck to honor Finland's hosting of the EU Presidency this year. So one design here for two coins.

However, the design for the collector coin commemorating the 100th year of Parliamentary reform in Finland has already been released as a €10 coin and the same design of the reverse (the side with the 2 faces) will be used on the special commemorative €2 for this year.

I hope this makes things clearer.

The European Commission lists that €2 coin here by the way:
http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/euro/n...e%20year%202006

See "2006 / Finland - 100th anniversary of universal and equal suffrage". Click on the coin picture to see a large image of the design.

Christian

Moneta has finally posted info of the coins on their website.
EU Presidency coins

Text description

Thank you for the info and the links!

So now we know what those characters represents: The coin has, quote, text balloons with letter patterns. The artist does apparently not view the EU Presidency very enthusiastic, hehe.

Is there any chance of the Suomi Superhero getting some of these coins for us? I would very much like to have one of the €5 pieces ...

Christian

It looks like a few 2€ coins are coming in the near future. I'm excited about that.

You are welcome!

Of course I can try and get you one, but please be aware that this is Moneta we are dealing with. Things are not always as they appear. While the coin may say €5, it really means €13.50. So if you are still interested, please let me know.

Hmm, let me ponder a little. I actually saw that price tag on the Finnish site but thought that was for the proof version. Well well well ...

(Do you remember how much the two previous bi-met €5 pieces were?)

Christian

Appearantly the only proof version will be the gold/silver version, unless they are issued along with the annual proof set which would make it a few thousand.


This year's Åland €5 commem had the same price charged: €13.50, while last year's €5 was face value.

Well, if one cannot get these new €5 coins from the bank like the older bi-mets, I might as well buy one from a dealer around here. Thanks for your offer though. As for the design, the two coins are quite interesting. Considering that the occasion itself is a fairly abstract one, the somewhat abstract look is much better than, say, yet another map of Europe ...

Christian

Actually none of the previous Finnish €5 have been available from banks. Most were distributed directly to individuals who had to sign up for a lottery. Those whose names were randomly selected won the "right" to purchase them for face value via post. Also a certain portion were distributed directly to select dealers who then sold them to the general public. Moneta likes to make things simple.

You will probably be able to find it at a cheaper price than me anyhow.

Ah, I see. Must have mixed that up with the €2 coins then. That lottery concept is a little odd indeed ...

Christian