2019-10-16 Wed

Recently, the South African Mint and South African Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni, announced that a new 2020 Natura series collectible coin featuring dinosaurs will be released in South Africa next year.

This coin also focuses on the ‘Rise of the dinosaurs – Archosauria’ theme and bears the same image as the 2018 1oz 24ct gold coin – the Coelophysis rhodesiensis.

This R25 fine-silver coin features the Coelophysidae which were highly successful primitive theropod dinosaurs that lived worldwide from the late Triassic to early Jurassic.

Coelophysis rhodesiensis, a small, agile dinosaur which preyed on small animals, inhabited South Africa and Zimbabwe during the early part of the Jurassic period. This slenderly built, bipedal dinosaur grew up to 3 m long and weighed about 32 kg.

The coin will be a limited edition with only 50 000 coins being made.

The obverse of the coin depicts the fossilised skull, neck and shoulder of an Erythrosuchus africanus. The words ‘Rise of the dinosaurs’, ‘Archosauria’ and the year 2020 as roman numerals ‘MMXX’ complete the obverse design.

Image Courtesy: South African Post