The Official Journal of the European Union has published details of the national side of coins issued by members states in 2021.

2022 is a year in which the jubilees of two of the world’s longest reigning monarchs are being celebrated.

The use of surface relief holograms to create striking visual effects on coins is not necessarily a new technology, but one that is a challenge for circulating coins because of durability.

Optimism towards the end of last year that the pandemic was running its course, and that things would start returning to normal, have been thwarted by the emergency of the Omicron variant of COVID, and uncertainty continues around in-person events in 2022.

Circulation coins may be facing something of a decline, but the collectors (numismatics) market is booming. A couple of years ago, the market was valued at approximately $17.6 billion annually.

Gräbener Pressensysteme celebrated its 100th year in business last October. The specialist knuckle joint and coin minting press company, based in Netphen-Werthenbach, Germany was entered in the local commercial register in Siegen, Germany in October 1921.

The Colombian Mint (Fábrica de Moneda) has received an award from the Colombian government for technical innovation, in recognition of the development of a new technique that enabled the continuing production of the country’s two highest denomination coins, despite the breakdown of a key piece of machinery just before the pandemic struck that prevented it being repaired.

Experts believe that as much as 7% of the world’s gold may be contained within the circuit boards of e-waste, most of which ends up in landfill or is incinerated.

The Royal Dutch Mint (RDM) is the latest mint to create a not-for-profit coin for charitable purposes, designing an exclusive coin in collaboration with the Smiley Movement. For every coin sold, it will donate a food box to the Foodbank Amsterdam at Christmas.

‘The past year has been an extraordinarily challenging one for the world as a whole, and The Royal Mint has been no exception’. These were the opening words in the Chairman’s Report for 2020/21.

Public support for the euro has reached an all-time high, according to the European Commission's latest Eurobarometer survey.

Despite the increase in production at the US Mint, coins for general circulation are still struggling to keep pace with public demand, forcing the Federal Reserve to again limit orders from its customers, especially for dimes and quarter dollars.

The Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) has announced its financial results for 2020. Overall, sales were boosted by 74% due to booming demand for gold bullion products.

The Mint of Finland, the leading exporter of coins and blanks with 99% of sales coming from overseas customers (up from 93% in 2019), reported near-flat consolidated revenue of €57.2 million in 2020, and an operating loss of €5.1 million (versus €1.4 million the previous year).

Without coins you cannot receive change when you pay with a banknote. Although banknotes receive most attention in the cash cycle, April’s MDC webinar reminded people why that is a mistake.

At the Future of Cash conference, Chris Forero-Slee introduced his business, Shrap. As he said, he does not expect to be popular with those who make their living from or who like coins. Shrap (the company presumably takes its name from shrapnel, ie. fragments of shells or bullets but also a colloquial term for small change) is a solution that offers an alternative to coins, which they regard as a ‘pain point’ in payments.

At the ICCOS Americas online conference there was, unusually, a coin panel, ‘Coin, coin everywhere and not a cent to spend.’ The focus was on what had happened to coins in the US in the pandemic, why a Coin Task Force had had to be set up and what the situation is now. The panel consisted of Kathleen Young from the Federal Reserve Cash Services Product Office, Ashley Yayock from Walmart, Thomas Strauser from Loomis, JR Davis from Davis Bankcorp and Linda Sherry from National Priorities Consumer Council.

The Bundesbank (BBk) provides 25.5% of the fully paid capital that underpins the European Central Bank (ECB), but it has brought into circulation 29.9% of the value of coins in circulation (€8.46 billion). This figure has been stable for some time.

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