Last week I was happy to learn that one of my coin designs received a 2016 Coin of the Year Award. It’s this colored silver coin showing an autumn view into the canopies of three tall silver maples:

1 oz Fine Silver coin - Maple Canopy: Autumn Allure - designed by Emily s. Damstra

1 oz Fine Silver coin – Maple Canopy: Autumn Allure – designed by Emily S. Damstra

See my original post about the coin here.

The Coin of the Year Award is a worldwide competition created and organized by the publisher Krause Publications. An international panel of judges chooses the award recipients. You can see all of the 2016 category winners from around the world, including the maple canopy, here. The 2016 competition is for coins minted in 2014.

We’ll find out in January which coin wins the overall Coin of the Year Award.

Krause Publications is known for its catalogs and guides to coins and currency, among other subjects. In fact, one of their recent offerings is a book showcasing all of the Coin of the Year Award winners from the contest’s inception in 1984 through the 2015 Awards. Coin of the Year: Celebrating Three Decades of the Best in Coin Design and Craftsmanship is a real visual treat. It contains superb photographs of every award winning coin and text by coin expert Donald Scarinci. Scarinci is a lawyer and numismatic enthusiast with a collection of coins that includes nearly all of those photographed for his book. He serves on the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (which makes recommendations for United States coins) and is a nominating judge for the Coin of the Year Award.

Speaking as someone who cares about artists’ rights and has occasionally had to stand up for hers, I was disappointed to see that the book identifies only a small percentage of the artists and engravers whose works fill the pages. Perhaps this omission can be remedied in a future edition, at least as far as that is possible. Even so, I found the book to be an inspiring compilation of coin designs that had me wondering what type of direction each artist received and the thought process that led to his/her final design.

 

5 Comments

okaypolliwog

CONGRATULATIONS, EMILY! It’s an extremely elegant coin design! Somewhat disappointing (to say the least) that a book on coin design doesn’t identify all of the artists that designed the coins. Sigh!

Amelia

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