Brazil: Circulation coins produced in the Netherlands

[eurocoin]

For the first time in several decades, Brazil has again (partially) outsourced the production of its coins. Royal Dutch Mint has produced a total of 150 million coins of the denominations of 5 centavos and 50 centavos.

The 2019-dated 5 and 50 centavos coins minted in Brazil depict no mintmark whereas the ones produced in the Netherlands depict mintmark A. It is unknown why the mintmark caduceus wasn't used.

[chrisild]

Interesting news! Do we know why the "A" was picked? Can't be short for Utrecht, and Países Baixos would not be a match either. Maybe OlandA ...

Christian

[eurocoin]

I have just contacted Royal Dutch Mint about this and am awaiting a reply.

[redlock]

Thanks for this very interesting information. 

[eurocoin]

Information received from Central Bank of Brazil:

Dear Niels,

There was a recent decision in Brazil, which allows us to import coins.

We decided to identify the coins by international supplier, with letters, in alphabetical order.

RDM is the first supplier and was assigned the letter "A".

We also decided to not include a supplier identification on the coins produced in Brazil.

So we will likely in the future also see B, C, D etc. Strange that they did not just allow the mints to use their own mintmark, but I assume they may not be aware that many mints already have a specific mark.

[chrisild]

A little odd indeed, but why not ... Anyway, thank you for asking, and for sharing this.

Christian

[redlock]

Central Bank of Brazil recently published the mintage figures for 2019.
According to their web-site 230.912.000 5c were minted in Brazil and 97.280.000 by RDM. 137.536.000 50c were minted in Brazil and 47.264.000 by RDM.