June 8, 2017 – For Palau, Coin Invest Trust has created this numismatic memorial of the highly symbolic sand dollar. A novel maritime motif with a mermaid adorns the national side of the silver edition, minted with smartminting© technology. Thanks to Big Gold Minting©, the gold edition has an impressive 13.92 mm diameter and a true-to-life, convex shape.
Palau / 1 Dollar / Silver .999 / 1 oz / 50 mm / Mintage: 2017.
The obverse features the name of the issuing nation Palau, the year of issue, nominal value, and the inscription SAND DOLLAR. The figural representation features a mermaid in a maritime environment. The reverse of both the silver and the gold edition is modelled on the skeleton of a sea urchin.
Palau / 1 Dollar / Gold .9999 / 1 g / 13.92 mm / Mintage: 2017.
Adding to the elements known from the obverse of the silver coin, the convex gold edition features an outrigger canoe with canoeist and the coat of arms of Palau.
Live sea biscuit (“Clypeaster rosaceus”), off Key Biscayne, Florida.
Sand dollars are among the most popular tourist souvenirs. Tourists go looking for the sun-bleached skeletons of the sea urchin from the suborder Clypeasteroida on the beaches of every ocean. The sand dollar owes its nickname to its resemblance with the old Spanish and American dollar coins. In Spanish the sand dollar is also known as “galleta de mar”, biscuit of the sea.
Sand dollars have become the symbol of an alternative economic system, used by the International Society for Ecological Economics. Yet other takes on the sand dollars postulate that they were used as coins by mermaids once upon a time or that they belonged to the people of the sunken city of Atlantis. So the sand dollar takes on a central role in the Percy Jackson book series by American author Rick Riordan. Inspired by Greek mythology, fantasy character Percy Jackson is given a sand dollar for his 15th birthday from his father Poseidon. Fighting the armies of Kronos, the hero uses it to purify the water of two rivers during the Battle of Manhattan.
The coins were minted by B. H. Mayer’s Kunstprägeanstalt GmbH. Collectors can purchase the issues through specialty dealers.
Please find more information on these coins here and here.
This is the website of Coin Invest Trust.
To learn more about the Sand Dollar, please visit the website of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.
And if you want to follow the adventures of Percy Jackson, just go to Google Books.