December 5, 2013 – To Christians Christmas stands for God’s love towards men. The merry event of the birth of Jesus was proclaimed by an angel. Coin Invest Trust has chosen this herald of good news for this year’s Christmas coin.
Cook Islands / 5 Dollars / Silver .999 / 15 g / 43.5 mm / Mintage: 2,013.
The coin is executed as a five-pointed star. The obverse depicts a portrait of the Cook Islands’ official head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, in matte. Her name, Elizabeth II appears along the rim, as does the name of the issuing country, Cook Islands, and the nominal value, 5 Dollars.
On the polished reverse a hovering angel is designed in matte relief. His right hand holds a trumpet which he is playing. His left, golden coloured wing extends from the field in the third dimension. Golden stars are arranged around the angel and above him we read the quotation written in black letter: Gloria in excelsis deo (Glory to God in the highest). Under the angel the name and the year of issue are given: Merry Christmas 2013.
Christmas is the Christian symbol of God’s love towards men. In December the faithful celebrate the birth of Jesus who became human in order to free men from their sins. This birth, according to Christian understanding, had to be announced. And who more appropriately could have been charged with this task than the herald, the enunciator or, to say it in Greek, the lingua franca of these times: the angeloi, the angels?
God once created these supernatural spirits as his assistants. Since the beginning of all time they appear now and then and when they announced the birth of Jesus they did so by singing: ‘Glory to God in the highest!’ The Latin version of this phrase, ‘Gloria in excelsis deo’, appears on the coin. At the same time it is the beginning of the famous Angelic Hymn that plays an important part in the liturgy of the Western Church and was very often set to music, for instance, by Johann Sebastian Bach in form of a cantata.
Guardian angel. Bernhard Plockhorst (1825-1907). Source: Wikicommons.
Besides, angels mediate between the sphere of God and the human world. Even many non-Christians believe in ‘light beings’ or angels who protect them in daily life and who one may even sometimes sense.
The coin is the last in a series of Christmas coins which examine very different aspects of this Christian feast. This year the coin does not accentuate the tradition of a specific country but the very origins of Christmas. At the same time the coin displays innovative technique: for the first time a 3D technique is applied to angel wings rendering the image of the assistants from heaven even more realistic.
To learn more about this coin please go to the Coin Invest Trust website.