2013 Coin Winners

A shortlist of finalists from nominations received were selected by IACA’S awards committee, and then put to a vote by IACA members.

THE awards were presented during the Coin Conference, in Berlin on October 29, by IACA Executive Director Eugenie Foster, and Co-Chairmen Tom Ferguson and Rick Haycock.

BEST NEW CIRCULATION COIN/COIN SERIES

The finalists in the BEST NEW CIRCULATION COIN/COIN SERIES were:

• BANCO DE LA REPUBLICA DE COLOMBIA: for their new 5 denomination series.
• MONETARY AUTHORITY OF SINGAPORE: for their third coin series
• BANK NEGARA MALAYSIA: for their third coin series

Banco de la Republica de Colombia emerged as the Winner in the best circulating Coin / Coin Series category of the International Association of Currency Affairs (IACA) 2013 Excellence in Currency Awards.

About the Colombian Coins:

The new series consists of five denominations: 50, 100, 200 and 500 as well as a high denomination of 1,000 Pesos. The coins were issued on June 13 2012 and there appears to be three main elements considered in the production of these new coins.

• Environmental Consciousness:  The engraving of the new coin series highlights the importance of environmental resources, especially water- the leitmotif of all the denominations is not only used to facilitate coin recognition within the public but to reinforce environmental awareness. There is a consistent design theme throughout all five coins of native Colombian fauna and flora which is intended to reflect the country’s biodiversity. The coins also feature images of water which is seen as an essential to the country’s ecological heritage. These designs confirm the Banks interest in promoting and preserving the country’s natural resources for a sustainable future.
• Issuing Cost Reduction:  Due to the increased metal prices the cost of producing coins has significantly increased and the bank was committed to finding ways to reduce to the cost of producing the coins. They made significant savings by changing the alloys and reducing the size of the 50, 100 and 200 Pesos coins.
• Improved Security Features:  The Security features in this new series of coins include bi metals, latent images and the edged grooves.

BEST NEW CIRCULATING COIN INNOVATION

The Best New Circulating Coin Innovation category was introduced for the first time this year. It was introduced in order to recognize the growing number of developments in coin security its Production and Distribution. The three finalists in this category were

• The Royal Canadian Mint for the security technologies in the new Canadian $1 and $2
• The UK’s Royal Mint for its iSIS authentication
• The Mint of Finland for its Coin Tune authentication system.

The Winner was the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM)

Their $1 and 2$ were judged as the best examples of new security features in circulating coins.

The Security feature in the CAD$1 and $2 that sets it apart from the rest is the RCM’s new CoinDNA® technology – whereby an image of the unique surface structure of each coin is captured and converted to a code, or digital fingerprint, that is stored in a database. Comparison between the coin and its code will enable the coin to be authenticated.

The other new security features include laser marks (a contrasting pattern micro-engraved onto the coin dies) of maple leaves and, on the C$2 coins, edge lettering and virtual images, again of a maple leaf, which changes appearance as the coin is tilted (created by engraving different patterns on each of the two-sided grooves on the surface of the coin).