Candidate designs for the U.S. Mint’s 2015 High Relief Silver Medal will look very familiar if you’ve read our earlier article about the 2015 $75 High Relief Gold Coin and its designs. Both sets are nearly identical.
Medals lack the many required elements found on U.S. precious metals coins, like the denomination, fineness, weight, and mottoes of In God We Trust, United States of America, and E Pluribus Unum. As such, the 41 proposed silver medal designs have far fewer inscriptions than the 41 gold coin designs. Really, that’s the main difference between the two sets.
Before you ask, pricing, specifications and other production details have not been disclosed. It would save time and money if the medals used the same planchets as those for the one-ounce, .999 fine American Silver Eagle. But that’s not a given. Expect to wait awhile before these types of questions are answered since the designs are only in the review stage. With that said, it would be shocking to see either of the high reliefs for sale before this fall.
On Thursday, Jan. 22, the candidates shown below were given to the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) to review. The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) is next in line. The CCAC will comment on the proposals, vote and offer their recommendations on Tuesday, Jan. 27.
2015 High Relief Silver Medal, Obverse Design Candidate Images
Here are the 25 candidates for the silver medal obverse:
2015 High Relief Silver Medal, Reverse Design Candidate Images
And here are the 16 candidates for the silver medal reverse:
CoinNews.net will follow-up with an overview of the CFA and CCAC recommendations.
