July 8, 2014 – Mints using ArtCAM won the great majority of the awards presented at the Krause Publication’s Coin of Year Awards sponsored by World Coin News and presented at the World Money Fair held in Berlin during February.
Winner of the overall Coin of the Year went to the French mint, Monnaie de Paris, for its Yves Klein 10-Euro silver coin, with its distinctive blue hand of the artist. The coin was also acclaimed as the Most Artistic Coin. Monnaie de Paris was also given top honours in the Best Silver Coin category for a second 10-Euro coin, its French Ocean Liner design.
Muriel Pénicaud, Directrice Marketing Adjointe Chargee De La Communication Operationnell at Monnaie de Paris commented, “As you can imagine, Monnaie de Paris is really proud to have received this prize of Most Artistic Coin and especially to have received the supreme award of all categories of coins. This is recognition of the quality of Monnaie de Paris’ workshops.”
“Engravers at Monnaie de Paris used ArtCAM for partial final improvements on the reverse of this Yves Klein coin. They first built the design in plaster. This plaster was then scanned by a laser before they used ArtCAM. The face and the hand of Yves Klein, on the obverse of the coin, were also modelled out of plaster and scanned with the laser. The background and final improvements on this obverse were created with this software as well.”
A second ArtCAM user to receive two Awards was the Royal Australian Mint, which was the winner of the Best Crown and the Best Circulating Coin categories.
“We are very pleased to have won two awards in the Coin of the Year Awards, recognition that our high quality coins are the ones that collectors can be proud to own,” said Dominique Appay, Engineering Services Manager, Royal Australian Mint. “We use software like ArtCAM to assist us in reducing the time to prepare a coin design, to ensure design accuracy and allow inclusion of the exquisite design features which make our coins so special.”
One of ArtCAM’s earliest customers, the UK Royal Mint, also won two Awards. “The Royal Mint has been working with Delcam for over fifteen years and has used ArtCAM in the creation of all of its circulation and collector coins,” stated Gordon Summers, Chief Engraver at The Royal Mint. “Over this time there have been significant improvements to the software, which we have then used for our coins, including our Remembrance Day Coin that won the COTY for most Inspirational Coin and London Olympic Games coin that won the Best Contemporary Event Coin. We were extremely honoured to receive these awards.”
Winner of the Most Innovative Coin was another long-term ArtCAM user, the Royal Canadian Mint. “The Royal Canadian Mint is proud to receive international recognition by winning the Most Innovative Coin category,” said Ian E. Bennett, President and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint. “Our development work with ArtCAM has contributed to our continuous innovation, and been an important factor enhancing the overall aesthetic of our coins and improving the productivity of our processes.”
The Best Gold Coin Award went to the Italian Mint. “At the Italian Mint, each coin is first designed by hand and then modelled in plaster with the mastery, creativity and techniques of our engravers,” explained Bruno Scarpellini, Head of the Engraving Department at the Italian Mint. “ArtCAM Pro is the perfect technological tool that allows us to transfer all the excellence of the designs of our artists to the dies. This ensures that the struck coins maintain all the features of the craftsmanship, tradition, art and beauty that are the heritage of our Mint.”
To learn more about ArtCAM click here.
We announced the winner of the Coin of the Year here.
You can find all Coin of the Year winners (with images of the coins) in this article.