Solomon Islands: unadopted designs

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1 cent.  FAO design.

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2 cents.  FAO design.  Not issued.

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1 cent.  Not issued.

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5 cents.  Not issued.

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10 cents.  Not issued.

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20 cents.  Not issued.

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1 dollar.  Not issued.

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I am very fond of the designs that were eventually issued.

These alternatives on this page are beautifully designed too.

The artist, David J Thomas, runs a jewellery ("jewelry", if you're American) business in London:

David J Thomas

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Before independence, the islands were known as the British Solomon Islands.

However, the word "British" was removed from the preliminary designs and never used on the coins.

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50 cents, 1988.




50 cents, 1990.

Also, the country did not issue a 50 cents coin until 1988.

That is why no such preliminary design is shown here.


The 1988 issue was an independence commemorative.

It a special legend around the rim of the reverse.

It also featured the coat of arms.


In 1990 the legend was removed.

The coin became a standard circulation issue.


However, the design was never altered to fill out the blank space.

This always looks quite noticeable.

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In some countries, the coins show the denominations in both numerals and words, e.g. "10 TEN CENTS". See the topic below:

Sets with all sub-unit denominations in words AND numerals.

During the design process for the Solomon Islands project, the artist experimented with this feature, presumably at the request of the Royal Mint or the Solomon Islands. There was also some repositioning of the denominational legends. I shall show some of these experiments below.

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2 TWO CENTS.

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10 TEN and 20 TWENTY CENTS.

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There was also some experimentation with the position of the text.

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The reverse of the issued 20 cents coin shows the text in a different arrangement.