Silver Burst High Relief Coin Continues Exploration of Humanity’s Greatest Fears

Silver Burst

Cook Islands. 20 Dollars 2021. Silver .999. 3 oz. Proof. 50 mm. Mintage: 999. Special technology: smartminting (Ultra High Relief). B. H. Mayer’s Kunstprägeanstalt, Munich.

Description of the Coin

One side features the androgynous, stylized bust of a person. The body and the back of the head dissolve into small shards of increasingly small size, in the left field 2021.

The other side presents the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Ian Rank-Broadley (initials: IRB); around it the name of the ruler, the issuing nation and the denomination.

Background

With its successful Trapped series of 2019, CIT already broke new ground in the world of commemorative coinage. The depiction was not about a specific subject, but rather, it was about a feeling. With Silver Burst, CIT takes up the approach of Trapped – however, giving it a completely new look. Silver Burst is a work of art in glossy proof; and rather than evoking a single emotion, the issue is open to a variety of associations and interpretations.

In the coin’s description on its website, CIT asks how much information the human vessel can hold before it breaks, linking the coin to the modern information society. One could also ask what effects automated logarithms have on a person. They group and depersonalize creatures until one becomes an androgynous mannequin without a personality of their own. On the coin, the featureless face dissolves into a multitude of tiny shads in ultra-high relief that, thanks to state-of-the-art smartminting technology, work as small mirrors, showing you minuscule parts of your own face.

As such, this coin is a prime example of how cutting-edge minting technology can be used not for its own sake but to shape a thought in the best way possible. With Silver Burst, CIT created a modern work of art that points far beyond itself. Silver Burst makes you think, think about yourself and your role in today’s society.

Further Information

www.cit.li/coins/silver-burst

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CoinWeek Podcast #155: Ultra-Modern Coins Take Over

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

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.