Croatia: post-Yugoslav coinage

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The Croatian flag.

The Republic of Croatia has a total area of 56,594 square kilometres (21,851 square miles) and a population of 4.28 million, most of whom are Roman Catholics. Its capital city is Zagreb.

Before World War I, most ethnic Croats lived within Austria-Hungary. After World War I and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Croatia and Slovenia opted to join with Serbia and Montenegro in the "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes". In 1929 the new country officially changed its name to Yugoslavia ("Land of the South Slavs"). Croats and Serbs spoke essentially the same language, but the Croats are mostly Catholic and use the Latin alphabet, whilst the Serbs, like the Montenegrins and Macedonians, are Orthodox and use the Cyrillic alphabet. Serbian dominance of Yugoslavia frequently caused resentment among the other nationalities.

After the death of President Tito in 1980, tensions rose again. In the late 1980s, Serbian politician Slobodan Milošević cynically championed the cause of Serbian nationalism in order to increase his own power. In private, though, he called Serbian nationalism "(bovine excrement)". His rabble-rousing and manipulation of the Yugoslav parliament eventually caused Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Macedonia to withdraw from the Yugoslav Federation in 1991. Serbs dominated the Yugoslav army, and, with the connivance of Milošević, Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia began a series of wars aimed at creating a greater Serbia. These terrible wars lasted from 1991 to 1995 and shocked Europeans with their violence, destruction and massacres. The rebel Serbs were given aid and arms behind the scenes by Milošević, though he always denied this. Eventually Europe, the USA, and the Machiavellian politician Milošević himself grew tired of the wars, and a peace settlement was negotiated.

By the end of 1991, rebel Serbs controlled one third of Croatia's territory, but in 1995 Croatia began a military operation that regained all of its lost territory. Croatia is now a peaceful, prosperous and stable democracy, and in 2013 the country joined the European Union.

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From Wikipedia:

The Croatian dinar replaced the 1990 version of Yugoslav dinar at par. It was a transitional currency, consisting only of banknotes, and it was introduced following Croatia's declaration of independence. During its existence the dinar declined in value by a factor of about 70. The dinar was replaced by the kuna at a rate of 1 kuna = 1000 dinara. The modern kuna was introduced on May 30 1994, though many of the coins are dated 1993.

The kuna is subdivided into 100 lipa. The word "kuna" means "marten" in Croatian, since it is based on the use of marten pelts as units of value in medieval trading. The word lipa means "lime tree". In 1994 coins were introduced in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 lipa, 1, 2 and 5 kuna. The coins are issued in two versions: one with the name of the plant or animal in Croatian (issued in odd years), the other with the name in Latin (issued in even years). Overall more coins have been minted with Croatian names than with names in Latin.

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For the sake of convenience, I will first show images of coins dated 2010, courtesy of the Croatian National Bank.

The reverse of the 1 lipa coin features a corn cob. The obverse of all the lipa coins shows linden (lime tree) leaves.

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The 2 lipe features a vine plant.

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Oak leaves and acorns appear on the 5 lipa coin.

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The 10 lipa coin shows a tobacco plant.

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The 20 lipa coins features an olive branch.

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A flower, Degenia velebetica, appears on the 50 lipa coin.

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The 1 kuna coin features a nightingale.

The reverse shows a marten.

The coat of arms is flanked by an olive branch (left) and ears of wheat (right).

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The 2 kune coin features a tuna fish.

On the reverse, the coat of arms is flanked by oak leaves to the left and laurel leaves to the right.

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The 5 kuna coin features a brown bear.

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Interestingly, the obverse of some of the lipa coins includes an extra leaf under the word "LIPA" or "LIPE".

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The obverse design of the modern Croatian 1 kuna coin is clearly based on the 1 kuna patterns of the Nazi wartime puppet-state.

See: Croatia: Rare wartime patterns from the Nazi satellite state.

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The arms and ornamentation on the reverse of the modern Croatian lipa coins are also clearly inspired by those on the wartime 500 kuna pattern.

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Here is an example of a 5 kuna coin with the legend in the Croatian language.