Comments on "The coinage of Namibia"

[<k>]

Parent topic:  The coinage of Namibia.
Please post any comments, questions or corrections in this topic here.

Your comments are welcome.

[<k>]

The Mint of Finland produced these coins. Unusually, the set did not include a 20 or 25 cents coin.

Jukka Uusitalo of Finland, who was a student at the time, designed the reverse of the 5, 10 and 50 cents. Jukka told me by email that a fellow student had produced some bird designs for the set, but the Namibians used the bird designs of a South African artist (name unknown) instead. The Mint of Finland produced the coat of arms design for the obverse of the coins.

Our forum member africancoins has since discovered that the South African artist Bernard Sargent created the bird designs for the $1 and $5 coins. Mr Sargent's middle name is Maurice. He was born in 1921. He worked for the South African company Metal Image at the time that he created the $1 and $5 designs.

[<k>]

Before the official coins were produced, some trial designs were minted, around 1990. I believe there were also some fantasy pieces produced around that time. Perhaps somebody could illustrate the trials and fantasies.

It would also be interesting to know to what extent South African coins circulate in Namibia.

[quaziright]

I wonder what the triangles along the rim symbolise. What's the significance of the number of triangles on each coin; I can't make out a trend here

[Pabitra]

Excluding 5 cent coin, they indicate the serial number in order of increasing denomination, in my opinion.

[<k>]

The 5 cent design spoils that theory, then.

Possibly it's the sun from the country's flag, and the artist has made a judgement about how many rays will fit, depending on the design.

[chrisild]

Not sure whether the number of triangles has any specific meaning. But other sources support that "sun elements" theory. "Appearing along much of the coin's rim, excluding the areas occupied by the aloe's leaves, is a rendition of the sun similar to that on the flag of Namibia, which symbolizes life and energy."

Christian

[<k>]

Thanks! It was a strange artistic decision to take, though. At least the rays didn't dominate the whole coin, unlike the stars on the infamous euro coins.

[Pabitra]

5 Cent appears to have been drawn by an artist of much lower calibre since the Rays touch the rim in a haphazard manner, as compared to other coins where they are distinctly separate from the rim.

May be, initially it was not proposed to issue 1 and 5 cents but they were counted as part of proposed ( but never issued ) set. Thus the Ray count was made for each denomination. Just a plausible thought

[<k>]

5 Cent appears to have been drawn by an artist of much lower calibre since the Rays touch the rim in a haphazard manner, as compared to other coins where they are distinctly separate from the rim.

I disagree. His artistry is fine. We know that more than one artist worked on these designs. The Mint of Finland should have noticed the discrepancy in the distance of the rays from the rim and ensured that they were uniform. Had the Royal Mint dealt with these coins, the Royal Mint Advisory Committee would have noticed this issue and addressed it. It was simply a question of coordinating the artists, who of course did not automatically replicate each other's tendencies when drawing the minor details.

[<k>]

So here are the details regarding the rays:

5 cents: 9 rays.

10 cents: 3 rays.

50 cents: 4 rays.

$1: 5 rays.

$5: 6 rays.

Each design uses a different number of rays, and the number chosen seems pretty arbitrary. Perhaps they were simply a visual aid to help people distinguish the coins more easily.

[Pabitra]

The original designer worked on designs with 1cent having one ray(?) and 5 cents having 2 rays.
He was told that 5 cents need not be minted so he forgot about it and proceeded with the rest of 4 coins.

After a while, there was a demand for 5 cents. The new designer too thought that the number had no significance and proceeded to design a coin, not noticing that rays do not touch the rim.

For better analysis, can we have mintage figures and date of minting of each of these coins?

By now they must have had minted $10 coin too. How many rays does it have? Or this time too, new designer showed his preference for arbitrariness?

Was the need for 1 Cent never felt, even for sets? Were the sets not minted or issued?

Did the original designer leave his draft design drawings?

[<k>]

The original designer worked on designs with 1cent having one ray(?) and 5 cents having 2 rays.
He was told that 5 cents need not be minted so he forgot about it and proceeded with the rest of 4 coins.

After a while, there was a demand for 5 cents. The new designer too thought that the number had no significance and proceeded to design a coin, not noticing that rays do not touch the rim.

You need to be careful here. Are you stating facts you know, or is this another theory of yours?

There is no known $10 coin of this set.

I do not know the answers to your other questions.

[chrisild]

Looked like a tongue-in-cheek comment to me.

[Pabitra]

You need to be careful here. Are you stating facts you know, or is this another theory of yours?

Neither.
It is a hypothesis, being logically drawn to a conclusion.
There was a 10 Dollar proposed in 1996, as indicated in SCWC but I am unable to locate any image.
A 10 Dollar ( image enclosed ) was however issued as circulating commemorative but with mintage of 5 million ( as shown in WMK) , it was more circulating than commemorative.
5 cent was minted in 1993 but not in 1996 and 1998 when 10 cents minted.( data from WMK).
This indicates that demand was very low for 5 cents although I agree that without getting actual mintage, my conclusion is only more probable.