Wednesday, September 24 2014

The winner of the Special Prize of the Organizing Committee of Coin Constellation -2014 is the coin series "Letters of the Armenian Alphabet" presented by the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia and minted by the Royal Dutch Mint.

The CBA press service has told ArmInfo that the award ceremony of the Eighth Coin Constellation 2014 International Competition took place on 18 September 2014 in Moscow.

This year the competition featured about 260 commemorative coins and 25 coin series from 31 countries. The coins were issued from Jan 1 till Dec 31 2013.     

This year the jury included numerous world museums, auction houses, coin distributing companies, numismatic associations and specialized media. 

The contest was held in nine major nominations: Unique Idea Concept, Successful Artistic Solution, Original Technology, Silver Coin of the Year, Gold Coin of the Year, Coin Classic, Souvenir Coin, Series of the Year, and Coin of the Year. The winners are determined by the absentee voting of the jury committee. Besides there are winners of the Special Prize of the Organizing Committee, the Prize for the Contribution into Realization of All-Russia Coin Programs, and People's Choice Award (the coin which gained most votes online at the numismatic portal www.Gold10.ru).

The participants of Coin Constellation-2014 were 
national banks: Lithuanian Bank, Bank of Latvia, Bank of Mexico, Bulgarian National Bank, National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic, National Bank of Poland, National Bank of the Republic of Belarus, National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan, National Bank of Ukraine, Trans-Dniester Republican Bank, Central Bank of Armenia, Central Bank of Russia.
mints: The Perth Mint (Australia), Royal Spanish Mint, The Royal Mint, Royal Canadian Mint, Austrian Mint, Andorra Mint, Pobjoy Mint, Mint of Poland, The Singapore Mint, Mint of Finland, Moscow and Saint Petersburg Mints of Goznak, Monnaie de Paris, Holy Land Mint, Hungarian Mint, the Royal Dutch Mint, the South African Mint, HelveticMint (Switzerland), Imprensa Nacional-Casa Da Moeda (Portugal), Israel Coins and Medals Corp.

For the first time among the participants this year there are the Royal Australian Mint, Central Bank of Philippines, Mint and Gold Refinery of Philippines.

Among the contestants were well-known coin distributors: Tatfondbank (Russia), Bank VTB 24 (Russia), Resource Trade (Russia), Russian Souvenir (Russia), Coin Invest Trust (Liechtenstein), Emporium Hamburg (Germany), NUMISCOLLECT (the Netherlands), Numiscom (Germany), PAMP (Switzerland), Treasures of Oz (Australia), Moneda Nueva (Spain), New Zealand Post.

Coin Constellation is the only international contest of commemorative coins in Russia. The participants are national banks, mints, coin distributing companies from all over the world.