There are a number of bat coins made of shiny silver, but few are made of gold. Here is one. This coin is the 2010 Samoa 1 dollar coin and is 0.999 pure gold. And it is tiny, just weighing in at 0.5g (about 25% of the weight of the smallest bat) and a whopping 11mm (7/16 inch) in diameter. But it is a beautiful little coin and a proof issue with a mintage of 10,000.
The coin has the same bat, the Samoan Flying Fox (Pteropus samoensis) on it as the 10 dollar silver coin, although it a wings-open flying pose instead of roosting, and there are no crystal eyes for this one. And given the size, the detail on the bat is remarkable. Facial features and tiny wrinkles in the wing membranes can be made out so clearly the engraving process was done with some high degree of skill.
The coin has the same bat, the Samoan Flying Fox (Pteropus samoensis) on it as the 10 dollar silver coin, although it a wings-open flying pose instead of roosting, and there are no crystal eyes for this one. And given the size, the detail on the bat is remarkable. Facial features and tiny wrinkles in the wing membranes can be made out so clearly the engraving process was done with some high degree of skill.
2010 Samoa $1 proof gold coin - Samoan Flying Fox (Pteropus samoensis)
However, all that said, there is one serious problem with this coin. The bat on the coin is NOT a Samoan flying fox. It is not even a flying fox at all. The first dead giveaway even looking at the small coin from a distance is that between the legs is a full membrane (word of the day is Uropatagium, the membrane between the legs that often encompasses the tail if it has one, which the Samoan flying fox does not). The Samoan flying fox has a V-shaped uropatagium with the notch of the V where the tail would be. The bat on the coin has a full uropatagium with full tail extending to the edge of it. Second is the face, which shows a blunt nose (not the fox-like visage that gives the bat its name) and a triangular-shaped nose leaf. Clearly this is not even the wrong flying fox but some other type of bat altogether. I have given this a bit of thought, but am unsure at this point which bat they used as a model for the coin, but so far I haven't nailed it down. I will update the post if I ever get back to figuring that out, but for now I just don't know.
The reverse of the coin is similar to the $10 coin, with the national arms, country and denomination listed.
RSS Feed
