2017-10-31 Tue

It’s fascinating how nature surprises us as snow and ice are the last things you might see in Fiji, but those elements are precisely the topic of a pair of new coins for the tropical island. The Reserve Bank of Fiji, with the Pobjoy Mint, issued the pair of silver coins celebrating the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. The XXIII Olympic Winter Games are scheduled for Feb. 9 to 25, the second Olympic Games set in South Korea.

The Games will showcase 102 events across seven sports that include several different styles of skiing, such as alpine, cross-country, freestyle and ski jumping. Also, ice skating is majorly part of the sporting event and includes speed skating, short track, and figure skating.

According to the Pobjoy Mint, designs for the pair of coins from Fiji celebrate two main fields of events, under the headings Ice and Snow. The reverse of the Ice coin is split horizontally and features two of the Games’ most popular sports, bobsleigh, and figure skating. A lone Olympian is seen traveling down a track on a skeleton sled on the top half, and five skaters are in the lower half.

The Snow coin depicts an alpine skier slicing through the snow in the coin’s upper half, and a snowboarder shredding down a slope in the lower half. Both the coins, depicting the two sports are segregated by different frosting techniques.

On the polished background, the upper sport is shown with the athletes frosted. The sport shown in the lower half of each coin utilizes a reverse frosting technique, with the athletes in polished relief against a frosted background, giving the impression of the snow or ice upon which the sport takes place.

The obverse of each coin features the Fijian coat of arms, a heraldic design consisting of a shield with the Cross of St. George, Fijian warriors, a canoe and a lion on a Proof background. The Proof .925 fine silver coins weigh 28.28 grams, measure 38.61 millimeters in diameter and have a mintage limit of 2,000 pieces each.