BAT: 50 pence 2023 Moon

[eurocoin]

To commemorate the existence of the moon, Pobjoy Mint has issued a commemorative 50 pence coin for the British Antarctic Territory. The coin depicts the lunar surface. It has an issue limit of 1,950 in copper-nickel diamond finish and 175 in sterling silver proof quality. The proof quality version has already sold out.

[krishna]

Looks like only a handful of countries have the actual NASA logo on their coins commemorating space milestones

[chrisild]

Maybe that piece was actually issued to commemorate NASA and its 65th anniversary this year? Just a guess ...

[eurocoin]

No, the theme of the coin is really just the moon. They tried to make the coin more relevant by adding a farfetched justification in that it amongst other things depicts the Shackleton and Amundsen craters, and by mentioning that a member of British Antarctic Survey Weather Team is now involved in the Endurance mission of NASA.

On the product images die marks are visible, but it appears that they forgot to include or omitted them on the actual minted coins as none of the coins I have so far seen depict die marks.

[chrisild]

I.C. Thanks for the additional info!

[eurocoin]

Pobjoy Mint has updated the product image on its website, omiting the die mark. As the mint has consequently used die marks on the base metal commemorative 50 pence coins in recent years, it appears that they were mistakenly omitted in the production process of this piece. It is also possible that it is a mule error, as the silver versions of the commemorative 50p coins do not depict die marks.

[krishna]

Are these marks indicating the engravers/ maker's name or something else?

[eurocoin]

Good question. On the original product images the die mark DA could be seen, to the left of the figure 50.
Below, I include the explanation of Pobjoy Mint on the use of die marks. The last paragraph is the most relevant in this case.

Die Marks

Die marks are small letters/ marks which appear on a coin in order to identify the die from which it was struck. These were first introduced in Isle of Man coins from 1978. Our die marks come in the form of two capital letters side-by-side in Hiberno-Norse style characters.

These marks run in sequence from 'AA', 'AB', 'AC'. The first letter represents the run in the coining year and the second letter denotes the die used. For example, 'AA' would represent the first run of the year and the first die used; 'BB' would represent the second run of the year and the second die used. This series of marks usually appear on the base metal circulating coins. However, not all die marks follow the expected trend for example, in the 70s' 'D' and 'E' was used to refer to Gold Proof or Silver Proof.

Our die marks have solely been used on our currency to show the variation in our coining mintages.  A new die is used/ required if the old existing die is deemed to have come to the end of its life and if the run is particularly long then many dies could be put to use.

As a new venture, we have issued commemorative coins with die marks on. Our first collection being the 'British Antarctic Territory 2019 Penguin 50p Series' which feature two die marks, 'DA' and 'DB'. On this occasion, 'D' refers to Diamond Finish and 'A'/'B' refer to the runs on the dies.

[krishna]

Wow thanks for the clarity

Such marks are very common in plastic injection moulding to identify the cavity through which the piece was moulded, sometimes you might have noticed small numbering on polymer components
these are used generally to rectify errors in the cavity or other issues while moulding like poor flow, breaks, warpage, short moulding etc.