Record Number of Entries for the MDC Awards

Announced during the 2023 Mint Directors Conference (MDC), held in Ottawa, Canada, earlier this month, the five winning entries include the Royal Australian Mint, Austrian Mint, US Mint, Monnaie de Paris, and the Royal Dutch Mint.

The 2023 MDC received record-breaking 204 entries in total for the five categories of the 2023 MDC Awards, with the ceremony taking place during the MDC Gala Dinner, held at the Canadian Museum of History.

Best Circulating Coin or Coin Series

Royal Australian Mint: $2 Coloured Circulating Coin – Honey Bee

The $2 Honey Bee coin was issued in 2022 as a joint collaboration between the Royal Australian Mint and the Honey Bee Industry Council to mark the bicentennial of the establishment of the bee industry in Australia.

The coin also commemorates ‘both the remarkable creatures and conscientious beekeepers’, with honey bee pollination estimated to contribute $4-6 billion to the Australian economy. There are approximately 20,000 registered beekeepers operating more than 640,000 hives across the country, which produce up to 30,000 tonnes of honey each year, which is consumed in nearly 40 countries across the globe.

The reverse of the Honey Bee coin has a central circle printed in a honey-coloured ink, which is protected by an intricate sculptured honeycomb. Surrounding the circle are engravings of two bees at work, along with examples of the plants they pollinate.

This is the second Best Circulating Coin award for the Australian Honey Bee coin this year, with the first received at the 2022 Coin of the Year awards held in Pittsburgh earlier this year.

The two other finalists in this category were Monnaie de Paris for the new obverse side of the €2 coin, and The Royal Mint for the Pride circulating 50p.

Best Collectible Gold Coin

Austrian Mint: €100 The Gold of the Pharaohs

The polished and frosted €100 coin was issued in 2020 as the second in the Mint’s ‘The Magic of Gold’ series, which traces the mysterious nature of gold in ancient cultures.

Commemorating one of the most celebrated findings in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings – the discovery of the ‘boy king’, Tutankhamun – the coin is comprised of pure gold, an Ancient Egyptian symbol of eternity. The reverse of the coin depicts the instantly recognisable death mask of Tutankhamun as its central motif.

The obverse features a collage of Ancient Egyptian images, with Akhenaten (Tutankhamun’s father) in its centre, raising his hands in homage to the sun god Aten whilst sun rays descend from the top right of the coin. A sarcophagus containing a Pharaoh is depicted in the background, with the hieroglyphic for gold inscribed below.

The other two finalists were The Royal Mint for Bullion Britannia, and Germania Mint for the Solomon Islands 2021 ‘2500 Years Confucius’ gold coin with a jade inlay.

Best Collectible Silver Coin

US Mint: Apollo 11 50th Anniversary 5 oz Proof Silver Dollar

The proof-polished and curved Apollo 11 coin commemorates the 50th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing in 1969.

Several ‘firsts’ occurred at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, which produced 100,000 of the coins. The production was the first time that it had minted a curved coin with such a large diameter, and the first time it had applied a proof polish finish at that size. New fixtures for the PVD die-coating chamber were also developed to accommodate the large diameter of the dies.

The obverse features the names of NASA’s previous space exploration projects – Mercury, Gemini and Apollo – around the edge, separated by depictions of various phases of the moon. In the centre is a boot print on the lunar surface, representing NASA Astronaut Neil Armstrong’s quote from the lunar surface, ‘That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’. The concave curvature evokes a lunar crater, while the sculpted rough texture represents the moon’s surface.

The reverse design is a representation of the famous photo of NASA Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon, with his curved visor represented by the curvature of the coin, reflecting back Neil Armstrong, the US flag, and the lunar lander.

The other two finalists were The Royal Mint for the silver version of Bullion Britannia, and CIT Coin Invest for the Cook Islands’ Silver Burst coin.

Best Packaging (of a collectible coin)

Monnaie de Paris: 2 KG Dior Trunk

In 2018, Monnaie de Paris collaborated with French luxury fashion house Dior to create packaging for its two kilogram Dior gold coin.

The trunk-shaped case has been described as ‘an expression of French luxury know- how’ by the companies and aims to inspire collecting. The case structure emulates those used by designers to store and protect dresses and the overall product contains design elements central to the work of Christian Dior, including the houndstooth design, couture bow, the suit-shaped bottle of the fragrance Miss Dior, plus the roses of Grasse that feature in the fragrance.

A pair of gloves, brochure, certificate of authenticity, and an original work depicting the famous Rose de Grasse – designed and signed by the artist Xavier Casalta, accompany the trunk.

The other two finalists were the US Mint for RocketShip and the Croatian Mint for the numismatic set of commemorative gold coins celebrating Hum and the Višnjan Observatory.

Best Sustainability Initiative

Royal Dutch Mint: The Dutch Vault

The Dutch Vault is the industry’s first energy-neutral mint building and has been in operation since 2020. Constructed at a cost of €20 million, sustainability was designed into not just the building itself but also its operations and processes. As a result, the Royal Dutch Mint (RDM) is energy self-sufficient and has reduced its waste by around 50%, compared with its previous site.

This includes a solar plant on the facility’s roof to meet all electricity needs, with the building heated solely with electricity, meaning no fossil fuel consumption. The heat from the presses can be reused to heat the building and cold night air is used to cool it in the summer. Demand for electricity is minimised through the use of LED lighting and timers, advanced heating, ventilation and air condition systems, and electric forklift trucks.

Rainwater is captured and used to flush toilets and to water the gardens. The Mint uses a local recycling company to treat process water with high levels of metal particles, which are captured and recycled.

RDM has also been able to reduce the use of chemicals and production time in its machines and processes by optimising the process parameters and monitoring the time and consumption.

Cardboard for packaging is now sourced from ‘Forest Stewardship Council’ suppliers, and if plastic packaging is required, RDM looks to work with recyclable plastics. All waste on site is now sorted and, wherever possible, recycled.

Further operational efforts include encouraging staff members to use public transport or cycle to work and reduce printer usage.

The other two finalists were the US Mint for its circulating blank annealing furnace retrofit, and The Royal Mint for its Local Energy Centre (LEC), which forms part of the GSCS (Generation Storage Consumption Supply) Project.

Further information about the finalists and winners can be found here. A description of the other finalists in each category will be provided in subsequent issues of Coin & Mint News™.