News in Brief

Two Effigies for Australian Coin Transition

The Royal Australian Mint (RAM) has confirmed that coin collectors will see a period of transition throughout early 2023, as coins released will either feature the 2023 Jody Clark Commonwealth Effigy or the 2023 Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Obverse.

The period of transition is largely due to the timings of various coins becoming Currency Determined. Those coins approved and produced prior to the passing of the late Queen will feature the Commonwealth Effigy and are scheduled for release during the early part of this year. Coins Currency Determined after will feature the Memorial Obverse until the effigy of King Charles III is approved and then released.

The RAM has already confirmed that new coins featuring the King’s portrait will enter circulation later than previously expected due to the approval and testing process required when changing the effigy. The coins are now scheduled to enter circulation in the second half of 2023.

Testing Coins at the Trial of the Pyx

The annual and ancient Trial of the Pyx ceremony recently took place at Goldsmiths’ Hall in London. At this over 700 year old event, coins are assessed for their quality and accuracy in a traditional ceremony overseen by The King’s Remembrancer – who swears in a jury of Goldsmiths to count, weigh and measure a sample of the coins produced by The Royal Mint.

Although the coins are continually assessed at the Mint itself, the Trial of the Pyx is one of the UK’s oldest judicial ceremonies and so holds great importance both historically and in ensuring the quality and accuracy of the coinage.

The Mint submitted nearly 10,000 coins for testing, with this year’s ceremony featuring two significant events. The first was the submission of the largest coin created by the Mint, the 15kg gold coin created for the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The ceremony also marked the first time in several decades that coins bearing the effigies of two monarchs were assessed at the same time.

Swiss Could Vote on Cash Guarantees

Swiss citizens are likely to vote in a future referendum on whether to enshrine in the constitution the availability of cash, after the launch of an initiative to pre-emptively guard against digital money.

In order for an initiative of the people to go to a national plebiscite it needs 100,000 signatures within 18 months. The group behind the initiative, Mouvement libertaire Suisse (the Swiss Freedom Movement), sees electronic transactions as a risk to freedom because they make surveillance easier, and claims it has already collected 157,000 signatures since launching the campaign at the start of February.

Neither the government nor the Swiss National Bank have voiced an intention to abolish cash. Even so, the initiative highlights how emotive the issue of physical money is in Switzerland. Every inhabitant holds the equivalent of $11,824 in cash, the most in all countries where the Bank for International Settlements collates data.

The referendum, if it is eventually held, will represent a rare instance where money preferences are tested by voters at the ballot box rather than simply through their spending habits.

US Mint and The Royal Mint Plan Joint Coin Set

The US Mint and UK Royal Mint have announced that they will release a joint Liberty and Britannia numismatic product, with pieces struck by both government mints, sometime next year. US Mint Director Ventris Gibson announced the future collaboration at the World Money Fair’s Media Forum in Berlin.

Both the US Mint and The Royal Mint have yet to release further details on the project, but Director Gibson noted at the Forum that ‘the coins/medals with the joint design will be offered for sale early in 2024 by both Mints’.

Previous collaboration between the two Mints includes the release of a series of gold and silver medals and coins in 2021, to mark the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower ship at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.

RAM Wins Award for Sustainable Packaging

The Royal Australian Mint (RAM) has been selected as the winner of a Worldstar Packaging Award for its new sustainable Standard Proof Coin Box.

The coin packaging is made from a single material – moulded plant fibre, which is made from bamboo and bagasse (sugarcane pulp, a by-product of the sugarcane industry) – which is both a renewable and recyclable material. According to manufacturers MaCher Australia, using this new packaging has reduced the pack weight from 148g to 49g, a reduction of 67%, and has replaced a box that was previously made from a mix of materials – many of which were non- recyclable.

The shift to new sustainable packaging for its numismatic products follows the RAM’s roadmap to make all its product packaging from recyclable or sustainable materials by 2025.

Estonian Coin Raises Funds for Ukraine

Eesti Pank (the Bank of Estonia) has transferred an additional €140,550 to the National Bank of Ukraine that it raised from sales of €2 coin cards commemorating Ukraine and freedom.

2 million coins were released last year, and more than 35,000 coin cards have been purchased since the coin was issued. Counting the first transfer made in August last year, the Bank of Estonia has now transferred almost €495,000 to Ukraine.

The coin was designed by entrants in a competition organised by the Estonian Academy of Arts, all of them refugees from Ukraine. The winning design by Daria Titova depicts a girl wearing a traditional Ukrainian wreath, carefully holding a small bird in her hands.

The central banks of the other two Baltic states – Latvia and Lithuania – have also issued commemorative coins featuring Ukraine to raise funds for humanitarian aid (see CMN December 2022).

Federal Reserve Raises Order Limits

The US Federal Reserve has raised the allocation limits for nickels, dimes, and quarters, allowing depository institutions to order more coin from Federal Reserve Banks. The new allocation limits have been in effect since 27 February.

This is the third time in six months that the Federal Reserve has raised the limits, with order limits having been raised four times for nickels, three for dimes, and twice for quarters, since the beginning of last year. Order limits for pennies were removed in January 2022, as a result of increased depository institution deposits to and moderate depository institution orders from the Reserve Banks.

The Federal Reserve and US Mint continue to work together with other actors in the industry to keep coins circulating in the country, including through the US Coin Task Force (see CMN November 2022).