Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda has released two commemorative coins, one of which is a circulating commemorative and the other a collector’s coin, and a medal to mark the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April.

This year the Technical Forum celebrated its 20th Anniversary at the World Money Fair, with some 280 people attending either in person or online. A total of fifteen papers were presented, with this month’s review continuing on from the March issue and covering the middle third of these presentations.

Three of France’s circulating coins are being updated to honour three exceptional French women. The updates to these coins follows those made in 2022 to the €1 and €2 coins, and marks the first time that the national sides of the coins have been updated since France’s adoption of the euro as its currency.

The Casa da Moeda do Brasil celebrated its 330th anniversary earlier this month with the launch of a commemorative medal featuring augmented reality (AR) technology. The medal is available in either bronze or silver and features invisible ink in addition to the AR technology.

The World Money Fair Technical Forum celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, just two years after the main event commemorated its half-centennial, having been established in 1972. In this month’s issue of Coin & Mint News™, we review the first five papers from the Technical Forum, with subsequent issues to cover the remainder.

The Perth Mint has announced two new partnerships during the month of March, with the first relating to the Mint Directors Association (MDA), and the second to numismatic platform Coiniverse.

Belgian businesses and shopkeepers will soon be obliged to accept cash payments following the Federal Government’s approval of legislation around cash acceptance. This follows a rise in the number of establishments that do not accept cash and subsequent complaints about the issue.

Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting is rapidly becoming a normal part of organisational life. In this context the Mint Directors Association (MDA) organised a webinar on 13 March to hear from three practitioners about their experience in this area.

The Central Bank of Kosovo has released details of its efforts to fight counterfeit currency, noting that it had successfully coordinated inter-institutional meetings to design and implement effective strategies to combat the circulation of counterfeit coins, especially €2 coins.

The central bank of Estonia, Eesti Pank, ended last year with an announcement that its Omniva coin collection campaign would continue into 2024. Although the programme had only been running for three months (as of December 2023), it had already collected around 3.3 million coins – 65% of which were 1 and 2 cent coins.

Many societies have a long-standing tradition of gifting money (banknotes and coins) to mark auspicious occasions – births and birthdays, weddings and other special events, where the value of the gift is as much social as it is financial.

The Royal Canadian Mint has released several coins in varying designs and denominations to commemorate the Year of the Dragon. Amongst these are a 1kg gold coin with an extremely limited mintage and a pair of silver and gold coins featuring Extraordinarily High Relief.

The Royal Dutch Mint has launched its latest ‘good-cause’ coin issue, in collaboration with the Dutch Hartstichting (Heart) Foundation.

Swiss-based Numisstaxx has launched as a new platform for the digitisation of coin collecting, providing users with the ability to digitalise and share coins easily online.

Held last October during the Gala Dinner at MDC 2023 in Ottawa, Canada, the MDC Awards paid tribute to a sometimes-underrepresented part of coin design when it comes to awards, namely ‘Best Packaging (of a collectible coin)’.

The Royal Mint has partnered with the United States Mint in ‘a groundbreaking collaboration’ between the Chief Engravers of both mints to produce a design for the 2024 Britannia and Liberty commemorative coins.

The Royal Australian Mint has teamed up with EQL, the commerce platform built to ensure reliable and fair product launches, to improve its e-commerce infrastructure and the experience for collectors as they aim to get their hands on new coins.

The Mint Directors Association’s Sustainability Group has announced a webinar focusing on ‘ESG Reporting – Insights from Within the Industry’, scheduled to be held on Wednesday 13 March at 10:00 and 16:00 GMT.

The Paris 2024 Organising Committee has unveiled the medals for the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Monnaie de Paris has been charged with production of the medals, exactly a century after the previous Parisian Games in 1924.

The Mint of Poland has opened this year with the release of the ‘world’s first flying coin’. Unveiled at the recent World Money Fair Technical Forum in Berlin, it floats in the air via a motor hidden inside the coin itself.