Unusual Design on San Marino Coin (KM# 153)

Started by Bimat, February 17, 2010, 05:39:30 PM

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Bimat

This is San Marino 500 Lire 1983,KM# 153.The theme is 'Nuclear War Threat',but the design looks very unusual.What does it exactly show? May be some mythological figure cursing the mankind,one is down the other one is asking for mercy?  ???

Other technical details are: 25.80mm,Plain edge,6.8g,Rome mint,mintage: 1,922,000.The coin is contra aligned.

Aditya

It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -J. K. Rowling.

ciscoins

That must be something from The Bible. Maybe apocalypse beasts? "And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth ... And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men" (Revelation 13:11-13)
Ivan
Moscow, Russia

chrisild

Apocalyse sounds good, yes. I have that coin (and the others from that set) too, and the booklet says the 500 L coin "Depicts the Apocalypse, and the strengthened concept of the tragic destiny which engulfs all humanity, with no way of escape." If you are interested in the rest of the booklet, I could send you a scan. Guess I can skip the Italian, French and German pages. ;)

Christian

andyg

#3
Here's the rest of the 1983 set of coins, I wonder if Christian would be kind enough to enlighten us as to what's on these too?

translateltd

The 10 lire clearly shows two people each with a finger stuck in a lift door.


translateltd

The 200 shows someone training to be a horse sexer, but he's going about it rather the wrong way.


Figleaf

I suspect they are all very apocalypsical, but the 500 reminds of something I'd long forgotten.

At the height of the cold war, I was dignified with a role in the third world war. That role was to kiss my family goodbye, go underground in a secluded military retreat in the Ardennes (I am not making this up) and do something useful. Since even at the time I was Dutch and therefore familiar with cows ::), my job was apparently to distribute radio-active cows among the radio-active population. The absurdity of it all must never have struck anyone in uniform...

So now I gotta have this coin. ;D

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

RHM22

You know you've run out of design ideas when you commemorate the possibility of total nuclear annihilation. This has got to be the most bizarre coin series I've ever seen.

chrisild

Don't think the "theme" was all that far fetched; the threat was a pretty real one. (Think NATO Double Decision and the concept that a nuclear war could be limited to Europe, which led to the rise of the peace movements in some European countries.) As they say in the folder, "War must be banished from the means of resolving the major problems of mankind. (...) As its inspiration for the ordinary coinage 1983, the Republic of San Marino decided to take this theme of the threat of nuclear war, which is to be seen as a call for peace, a request for reasoned thinking, and an appeal to our instinct for self-preservation."

San Marino changed the design of its circulation coins every year until 2001, and each of these sets had a specific theme. One year it was fighting drug abuse, one time it was the 500th aniversary of the "discovery" of America, one time they had European philosophers from ancient Greece to Popper ...

Christian

RHM22

Yes, the threat was not far-fetched at all. In fact, the possibility that we wouldn't have a nuclear war seemed more far-fetched at the time to many Americans. I still think the designs are very bizarre, though they all seem to have some type biblical theme.

andyg

Here are the official meanings behind the designs.......
Martin was not too far off I see.

Sir Sisu

Very interesting topic indeed for a country that has 3 nuclear cooling towers in its coat-of-arms. ;)

chrisild

Nah, they primarily rely on coal. Can't you see the three smoking chimneys? ;D  Admittedly the official explanation - three towers, each of them with an ostrich feather at the top - sounds about as strange ...

Christian

tonyclayton

Quote from: Figleaf on February 17, 2010, 10:57:43 PM
I suspect they are all very apocalypsical, but the 500 reminds of something I'd long forgotten.

At the height of the cold war, I was dignified with a role in the third world war. That role was to kiss my family goodbye, go underground in a secluded military retreat in the Ardennes (I am not making this up) and do something useful. Since even at the time I was Dutch and therefore familiar with cows ::), my job was apparently to distribute radio-active cows among the radio-active population. The absurdity of it all must never have struck anyone in uniform...

So now I gotta have this coin. ;D

Peter

I too had a similar role as a Scientific Adviser to the local government.  I do not recall the cows (other than as a potential health risk), but I do recall one exercise where all the H-bombs had 'landed' on Golf Courses.  Clearly striking at the heart of British Society >:D

Figleaf

Years after the implosion of communism, I met an American, who was also tasked with doing his part in fighting the third world war. His problem was that between his house and his assigned bus stop (no, I am not making this up) was the river Potomac and the planners thought that bridges might be destroyed or clogged. Soooo ... he got a nice rubber boat out of being a cold warrior. The family liked it.

There is a well-known story, that, one night, during the Cuban Missile crisis, Dean Rusk was asking John Kennedy if he would go into hiding as planned if the third world war broke out. Kennedy shook his head and Rusk told him he'd also decided he wouldn't go.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.