Coin & Mint News™ continues our ‘Remarkable New Issues’ segment, in partnership with CoinsWeekly, by highlighting three new creative collectible issues – including an unusual shape, multi-faceted design, and colourful imagery.

The 32nd Mint Directors Conference took place from 27-29 April in Cape Town, South Africa. The event, co-hosted by the South African Mint Company, focused on exploring the fusion of traditional minting practices with modern technological advancements.

As CMN went to press, the US Treasury officially confirmed the end of penny production, following the Trump administration’s order to cease minting the coins earlier this year. The Department will stop issuing new pennies into circulation by early next year, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The World Money Fair is the world’s largest coin fair. This year’s event, held 30 January to 1 February, attracted more numismatics enthusiasts than ever before – with over 13,600 attendees and more than 300 exhibitors from 50 countries present. WMF Director, Goetz-Ulf-Jungmichel, commented that the event ‘shows that our industry is not only preserving history, but actively shaping the future’.

The latest figures from Eesti Pank on cash issuance detailed a fall in the number of coins issued in the first quarter of 2025. Approximately 1.5 million coins with a total value of €1.6 million were issued, with the most common being the €2 coin – which comprised half of the total number of coins issued into circulation.

ABC Refinery has announced its adoption of the ProvCheck app, allowing customers to authenticate the provenance of its ABC Bullion gold bars. Currently compatible with numbered 1kg ABC Bullion gold bars, the app enables customers to scan their bars and unlock the mine-to-market history of the product, including the gold’s origin and attributable carbon emissions.

The National Bank of Kazakhstan has launched a new digital coin, backed by unallocated and certified physical gold. Those interested can purchase, and then sell, the digital gold coin via a mobile application called ‘Tabys’. Investors are also able to gift coins to another investor using the app.

The 32nd Mint Directors Conference (MDC) was held last week in Cape Town, South Africa. The event hosts the MDC Coin Awards, sponsored by MingFeng Packaging, which this year took place last night during the MDC Gala Dinner at Cape Point Vineyards.

Reconnaissance International, co-publisher of Coin & Mint News™, has launched DataVault™, the industry’s first dedicated, searchable online database for coins and banknotes – designed specifically for currency professionals who need fast, reliable, and up-to-date information.

The Bank of Zambia has begun issuing new families of both banknotes and coins. The currency showcases Zambia’s rich heritage, with its unique flora and fauna as the central theme; hence it is called the ‘Heritage Series’.

The Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten began issuing a new family of banknotes and coins on 31 March. This is not just a redesign and upgrade for the coins and notes but a completely new currency, with the Caribbean guilder replacing the Netherlands Antilles guilder.

Reconnaissance, co-publisher of Coin & Mint News™, launched a new website – cashsustainability.com – on 22 April (World Mother Earth Day) as a cash community asset to capture and consolidate initiatives, work and research from every part of the cash cycle, and provide tools to support organisations on their pathway to a greener future.

The Royal Mint has made an equity investment in Canadian cleantech company Excir, its partner for precious metals recovery.

Gold has been viewed as a safe-haven asset for centuries, a role that is unlikely to change anytime soon. By its very nature, the precious metal asset holds store of value and is a hedge against volatility as a so-called safe and stable investment, in addition to providing protection against inflation. The current weakening of the US dollar only reinforces this.

Spain is reportedly the latest country considering cash rounding, after a proposal has been tabled to eliminate the one and two cent coins. The news closely follows the German National Cash Forum’s cash rounding advocacy last month, which asked the country’s Federal Ministry of Finance to ‘advocate for...a binding statutory rounding rule in Germany’.

The Bank of Central African States (BEAC) has released a new family of circulating coins for member countries of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC). This includes Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo.

President João Lourenço of Angola has officially opened the National Bank of Angola’s new high-tech cash centre – Casa do Kwanza – in the capital, Luanda for the storage, processing and distribution of the country’s currency, the kwanza. The cash centre has been four years in the making, at a budgeted cost of approximately Kz 33 billion ($36 million).

Researchers from the UK’s National Health Service have identified a possible unexpected benefit of the rise in contactless payments: fewer children are turning up at hospitals after swallowing coins or sticking them up their noses.

The Mint Directors Association (MDA) held a webinar last month titled ‘Change For Coins: How to Harness the Passion of a New Generation of Collectors’, which focused on collectibles and leveraging product launches to grow brand loyalty and optimise commercial opportunities.

Coin & Mint News™ continues its ‘Remarkable New Issues’ segment, in partnership with CoinsWeekly, by highlighting three new collectible issues with dynamic designs – and in the case of Austria, a colourful centrepiece.