No…….. SLOW and STEADY Wins the Race!!!!

{ Words fail me……. – image reblogged from westminstercollection.com }

Just in case you didn’t know, The East India Company have released a new silver 50p (‘their first seven-sided 50p EVER!’ – emphasis, emphasis, sell, sell) which can be purchased from The Westminster Collection.  Whether this will go on to be either released as a brilliant uncirculated coin or put out into circulation remains to be seen as there is (brace yourself) a minimal amount of informative detail on the sales page.

Of course the description on the, ‘act quick! I-am-very-rare-and-precious-honest’ page is written in standard, cringeworthy Westminster Collection style.  It is so pushy it kind of makes you wonder how the Hare ever got a chance to have a rest in the first place.  This blurb includes the howler, ‘You can also see the hare snoozing against a tree in the background, ignorant to the tortoise overtaking him!’  Er, that is probably because he didn’t see a tortoise and merely wondered for a few seconds why a child’s drawing of the large hothouse from The Eden Project was ambling past.  And also how much this ‘thing’ had to pay in road tax each year.

No, the artwork on this St Helena release really isn’t so great…. whatever way you choose to look at it.  What could have been a truly beautiful coin to illustrate a truly wise fable by the much respected Aesop, it merely looks like a portion cut from a Pablo Picasso painting of the French Alps.  Travesty springs to mind.

All in all, the designers of ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’ fifty pence would have done well to use the actual fable they were illustrating as guidance; rather than rushing in with what really does appear to be half-assed artwork, taking their time with it would have meant far nicer results.  Needless to say, I have little hope for any further releases in this series.

‘What could have been a truly beautiful coin to illustrate a truly wise fable by the much respected Aesop, it merely looks like a portion cut from a Pablo Picasso painting of the French Alps.’

{ Packaging for the coin – image reblogged from westminstercollection.com }

Just to add salt to the wound, the packaging for the item is gorgeous. Housed in a lovely hexagonal box (I am guessing that a more relevant heptagon box was simply too pricey to manufacture), it really is nice with a sly use of complimentary near-pastel shades and not too much bling-bling (which is nauseatingly big these days lol) to finish it off.  Why, why, why oh why????  Why so much attention to detail with the packaging when the item itself just looks ill thought out and mass-produced?  Doh!

Anyway, you best get yourself over there as there are only 3,500 up for grabs (currently…..) out of a worldwide mintage of ‘just’ 18,000.  Although you may still be lucky as, several days on, Westminster still appear to have more in stock….

 

© Article and images (except where stated) copyright Mik Smith 2022