The current trend for embedding all sorts of stuff inside coins continues, from the ubiquitous Swarovski crystals to such interesting items as nano chips and windows. It doesn’t always work and we’re sure you’ve looked at quite a few coins and thought ‘Why?’. This isn’t one of those cases; far from it. With the series debut back in 2011 winning the 2012 Coin Constellation award for New Technology, that coin and its subsequent siblings all reached sell-out status pretty quickly and the first coin in particular now commands multiples of its issue price.

Each coin in this ‘Sea Treasures’ series is composed of 25g of fine silver struck into the shape of a particular mollusc, a large phylum of invertebrate animals with around 85,000 distinct species. The concave reverse sides have a hologram effect applied, upon which is added a real pearl. The overall effect is quite striking and the popularity of the series is plain to see.

The Triangle Sail Mussel (Hyriopsis Cumingii) is the fourth release in the series, and Dutch producer Numiscollect has decided to do something a little different this time around. Instead of the usual mintage of 2,000 pieces, the silver coin has been reduced to 1,500. The remaining 500 pieces have been gilded and a two-coin box has been made available which we’ve yet to see images of.

The mussel itself is a species is recorded from China (Hebei, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan provinces) and from northern Viet Nam. In China it is known to occur in the freshwater lakes Poyang, Dongting, Taihu, Hongze and Shaohu and Gaobao in China and along the rivers, and from Cau Day, and Ai Loc in Viet Nam. Like most freshwater species in the region, it is seriously overfished in its native environment.

It’s an interesting series and we’ll put a Coin Series Profile up on them shortly. The coin will ship later this year in the Autumn. The first coin in the series is depicted below and was the award winner.