Typefaces – Sherlock Holmes
Cook Islands. 5 Dollars 2023. Silver .999. 1 oz. 45 mm. Proof. Mintage: 1,887 pieces. Special technology: Microminting. Minted by B. H. Mayer’s Kunstprägeanstalt, Munich.
Description of the Sherlock Holmes Coin
One side is filled with the beginning of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel “The Hound of the Baskervilles” in micro lettering. Due to the slightly thicker execution of individual letters, Sherlock Holmes’ portrait appears as we know it: with a pipe and a deerstalker. Below, the inscription Sherlock Holmes, on the rim, the year 2023.
The other side features the portrait of Elizabeth II; below, IRB (= Ian Rank-Broadley), and around it the legend ELIZABETH II 5 DOLLARS COOK ISLANDS.
Background on the Sherlock Holmes Coin
There’s a certain magic to letters: using nothing but ink, paper and a printing press, they create vivid imagines in our minds. An author whose imagination remains deeply etched in our collective memory is Arthur Conan Doyle, the inventor of Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes needs no introduction. Ever since The Strand Magazine published the first case of what’s probably the most famous detective of all times in 1891, half the world has known that every mystery, no matter how complicated, is solved at 221b Baker Street. “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, which ran in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, became the best-known Sherlock Homes story.
With its coin Typefaces – Sherlock, CIT has found a perfect numismatic expression for the connection between printed letters and our imagination. Thanks to exquisite microminting, CIT succeeded in reproducing a large part of the beginning of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” word for word from the English original. Since some letters are slightly thicker than others, the portrait of Sherlock Holmes appears as an optical illusion. The letters become an image – the numismatic interpretation of what happens in our mind when we read.
Further Information on CIT Sherlock Holmes Coin
www.cit.li/coins/typefaces-sherlock
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CoinWeek Podcast #155: Ultra-Modern Coins Take Over
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In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, we have a lively, interesting, and provocative conversation with Chang Bullock and Orlando Lorenzana of CIT, where we talk about how ultra-modern coins (or postmodern coins, as we call them) have taken over the contemporary coin market and how CIT’s innovations in color and coin minting technology are changing the game for private and sovereign mints.
You cannot walk away from this podcast without learning something about the way minting has changed–and has always been changing throughout the course of monetary history–and we hope it will give you a clearer picture of where we are heading.
