Euro coins design competitions

[ciscoins]

The design of Estonian euro coins had been chosen in a public vote: http://www.eestipank.info/pub/en/EL/ELiit/euro/kavand/_1kava.html

And how it had happened in other countries? How and when were the regular coin designs chosen? Are the design projects which didn't win the competitions published at some websites?

[chrisild]

Since the designs of the country-specific sides are a purely national matter (as long as the basic conditions, e.g. displaying the Stars of Europe, are met), there is no single publication or website that shows all the designs from all euro countries. Neither was there one single way of picking the designs; again each country did that differently.

Had you asked about the euro notes, the answer would have been much easier. All designs were made available in a printed catalog that can or could be purchased; the PDF version (about 27 MB) is here:
http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/euro_catalogueen.pdf

Some background info regarding the competition is at the bottom of this page:
http://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/html/design.en.html

As for the common sides of the euro and cent coins, have a look here ...
http://www.eurocoins.liesemeijer.com/CESDesign1997.html
... and also look at this page for some info about several (2004 and later) design contests:
http://www.eurocoins.liesemeijer.com/ (scroll down a little and follow the links)
Some of the planned designs have been updated in the meantime; Latvia for example plans to use the Latvian Maiden for both the €1 and €2 design.

Here are some designs (by Victor Huster) for German euro and cent coins:
http://membres.multimania.fr/victorhuster/numismatik/M%FCnzwettbewerbe/2002%20EURO%20PREIS.jpg

And these are - in a tiny picture though - the designs proposed by Rolf Lederbogen:
http://www.ka-news.de/bilder/4806.jpg

Various designs from various countries and artists (this was from an exhibition in Vienna, in 2006):
http://www.oenb.at/de/img/gepraegt_fuer_europa__tcm14-41011.jpg
http://www.oenb.at/de/img/gepraegt_fuer_europa__tcm14-40342.pdf

The Dutch designs can be found in a book/catalog "Beatrix in Europese handen", published by the Penningkabinet, Leiden (which is now part of the Money Museum, Utrecht). As for "public votes", I know that in Italy several designs were picked by public televotes. Malta had a telephone/SMS vote about the designs too. Don't know about how many participated; the Estonian contest, and also the vote about the €2 commems 2009 (10 Years Euro/EMU) show how easily a vote can be influenced if only relatively few take part at all ...

Christian

[ciscoins]

I've found an archive copy (February 1998) of the European Union website. Some of the images, including common sides of the euro coins, look different from the actual designs. For example, that's how a German 50 cents coin could look like:

[chrisild]

Right, the common side was Luc Luycx's earlier version (see Lex Liesemeijer's page that I mentioned before), but that was changed before the first coins (1999-2006 type) were issued. To emphasize that the name of the small unit is "cent", the character sizes were modified. And on the country specific side, the year was moved to the bottom.

Also, the idea of having a latent image at the bottom of the €1 and €2 coins (cf. Liesemeijer) was given up again. The German bimetallic pieces had a corresponding (but oval) latent image underneath the eagle. However, all those were not rejected designs but "winners" that just needed to be modified for some reason ...

Christian

[Figleaf]

I don't trust that "public vote" system. It sounds wonderfully democratic, but it can be manipulated too easily, as was shown by the Greek campaign for a design that was simply in no way the best.

Even more important, John and Jane Doe wil not go for creativity and innovation and vote for the dull and predictable instead. No one would have voted for Goya's Disasters of war as the pictures of the year. Art should be created for art's sake, not for the sake of popularity.

Peter

[ciscoins]

"Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." (W.Churchill)

Yes, the views of ordinary people can be manipulated, but not completely. Most of the leaders who came to power in a situation of stability (not after a revolution or something) will choose much more dull and predictable designs.

[chrisild]

Let us have a look at the Estonian vote then. In the first "round", more than 130 design sets had been submitted. Then a jury of experts picked the 10 best sets, and in December 2004 - six years ago - people had about a week to vote for one of them. About 45,000 voted, and right, Lembit Lõhmus's set (umm, design) was by far the most popular, with approx. 12,500 votes. Now 12,500 is ... about one percent of the population. Qui tacet consentire videtur.

I still wonder, however, whether it would have more sense to say in advance "we want eight different designs (or three, or just one)". Also, in a country where coins are not really used much, would it have been necessary to inform people even better? Maybe some simply did not care because kroon coins are ... umm, just small change, nothing that you carry and use?

Christian

[<k>]

I'm trying to collect some large sized images of Euro designs that were NOT adopted. I've looked at the www.eurocoins.liesemeijer.com site and the relevant Wikipedia pages. Some questions:

1] Has anybody see any designs from the Cyprus competitions that were NOT among the three chosen?

2] Has anybody seen any larger images than this of the Latvian design that has NOT been chosen to be adopted?

[chrisild]

Has anybody see any designs from the Cyprus competitions that were NOT among the three chosen?

Have not seen any, except for the ones that Frizio designed. http://www.webalice.it/annovi.frizio/p_eurofantasy10.html Keep in mind however that all designs will be somewhat similar, as the three objects to be depicted had been decided upon before. http://www.centralbank.gov.cy/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=2775&lang=en

Has anybody seen any larger images than this of the Latvian design that has NOT been chosen to be adopted?

That design has a different background. It was not "beaten" in a competition but simply canceled at some point. For two reasons as far as I remember: First, while the idea of making one of the three monument stars also one of the Stars of Europe is an interesting one, the chosen design resulted in one star in the ring being bigger than the others. At the bottom the statue goes "into" the ring too. Now they could reduce the size so that the monument is depicted in the pill only. But the result would have looked small and somewhat odd. Hence the decision to use the €1 design for the €2 too.

Christian

[<k>]

Have not seen any, except for the ones that Frizio designed. http://www.webalice.it/annovi.frizio/p_eurofantasy10.html Keep in mind however that all designs will be somewhat similar, as the three objects to be depicted had been decided upon before. http://www.centralbank.gov.cy/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=2775&lang=en

Thanks, Christian.

That design has a different background.

You've seen it with a different background from the one in the image above?

[<k>]

Has anybody seen any larger images than this of the Slovakian competition designs?

The image didn't show up in my earlier post.

[chrisild]

You've seen it with a different background from the one in the image above?

No, I did not mean "background" literally.   It's just that the Freedom Monument design was not part of a design set that won the second, third, etc. prize. Ilze Kalnina won the "contest of ideas", and later the monument was replaced by the Latvian Maiden for the reasons I mentioned.

http://www.bank.lv/en/eu-and-euro/the-design-models-of-the-latvian-euro-coins (esp. the third paragraph)
http://www.eiro.lv/eng/the_euro/euro_banknotes__coins/latvian_euro_coins/ (ignore the first two sentences ...)

Christian