Today's bat coin is a crossbreed. If you remember from the last couple blog posts, the 25 fils from the Sultanate of Pemba is technically a fantasy issue, and the Polish 2 Zloty is a legal tender issue. So what is this coin?
2016 2 Euro coin (Germany) with the "scary bats" Halloween motif
You guessed it, it is both a fantasy issue and a legal tender coin. Essentially this is an aftermarket overlay on a real coin, kinda like painting flames on the side of a '57 Chevy. It's still a Chevy and you can still legally drive it, but it looks rather different.
So here we have a standard 2016 2 Euro coin from Germany. The design under the bats is the Zwinger Palace in Dresden and this is considered a commemorative coin. The D visible protruding from roughly the center of the lowest bat is not a mint mark for Dresden, but the country code for Germany. The mint mark is a J in the field of orange in the upper right and shows that the coin was made in Hamburg. To the right of the J are the initials JT for the engraver (Jordi Truxa). And your German lesson for the day is that the word Sachsen, visible under the D and lowest bat, means Saxony in German.
The bats, of course, are just some stylized Halloween bats with scary slanty eyes in a generally orange and black motif in keeping with the holiday, so I really don't have much to say about them from a naturalist standpoint. But they ARE worthy of note. The first thing is that three of the bats are more like real bat silhouettes, with normal bat ears and feet. The other two bats are classic Halloween make believe bats with Batman ears and a pointy tail with no feet. I find the use of two separate styles of bats to be most odd.
But, there is a real mystery with the bats here. Did you see it? Look again if you haven't seen something wrong with this picture... ...Okay, that's enough time, as this one isn't too hard. I ask you, just how does a bat end up with its wing BEHIND the moon??? Either that is one remarkably huge and far away bat, or the art is just wrong. I don't know if the designer missed this bit or just did it anyway to allow for the composition of bats that he/she wanted. Well, there should always be some mystery surrounding bats at Halloween.
The other side of the coin is just the standard 2 Euro design:
So here we have a standard 2016 2 Euro coin from Germany. The design under the bats is the Zwinger Palace in Dresden and this is considered a commemorative coin. The D visible protruding from roughly the center of the lowest bat is not a mint mark for Dresden, but the country code for Germany. The mint mark is a J in the field of orange in the upper right and shows that the coin was made in Hamburg. To the right of the J are the initials JT for the engraver (Jordi Truxa). And your German lesson for the day is that the word Sachsen, visible under the D and lowest bat, means Saxony in German.
The bats, of course, are just some stylized Halloween bats with scary slanty eyes in a generally orange and black motif in keeping with the holiday, so I really don't have much to say about them from a naturalist standpoint. But they ARE worthy of note. The first thing is that three of the bats are more like real bat silhouettes, with normal bat ears and feet. The other two bats are classic Halloween make believe bats with Batman ears and a pointy tail with no feet. I find the use of two separate styles of bats to be most odd.
But, there is a real mystery with the bats here. Did you see it? Look again if you haven't seen something wrong with this picture... ...Okay, that's enough time, as this one isn't too hard. I ask you, just how does a bat end up with its wing BEHIND the moon??? Either that is one remarkably huge and far away bat, or the art is just wrong. I don't know if the designer missed this bit or just did it anyway to allow for the composition of bats that he/she wanted. Well, there should always be some mystery surrounding bats at Halloween.
The other side of the coin is just the standard 2 Euro design:
Not much to say about that.
Anyway, this coin is marketed with a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) that gives the general stats. Apparently 2,500 of these were "minted" so there aren't a zillion of them out there. And I must say that it does come in a quite nice little display box.
Anyway, this coin is marketed with a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) that gives the general stats. Apparently 2,500 of these were "minted" so there aren't a zillion of them out there. And I must say that it does come in a quite nice little display box.
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