The ANTIQUANOVA Mint Launches More than 10 New Replicas of Rare Ancient and Mediaeval Coins.

Brno, Czech Republic, April 8,2005 – The privately-owned Antiquanova mint and medal maker‘s (www.antiquanova.com), specialising in coining replicas of rare historic coins and making custom-made coinages in historical styles, launches 12 new types of coins, including a silver replica of one of the most beautiful coins of all time – the Syracusan Dekadrachm. The new comprises of replicas of ancient Greek, Roman, Celtic, and mediaeval coins as well as those stamped after 1500 AD.

“On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of starting the on-line sale of the products of our medal- making workshop we have decided to present to the public the fruit of our work over the last six months”, says Pavel Neumann, co-owner of the Antiquanova medal maker’s. We have compiled and are now introducing to the market a set of 12 new coinages, mainly replicas of ancient and mediaeval coins. The most interesting of these is a replica of the ancient Greek Dekadrachm of the city of Syracuse from the turn of the 5^th and 4^th century BC, or a replica of the ½ Joachimsthaler of 1520 – the very coin from which the English word dollar is derived”.

All coins from the new series (the coining dies and the coining process) are the work of the other co-owner of the medal making business – the designer Petr Soušek who hand engraved or stamped the image directly into the steel dies. Each of the coins made in silver or gold is minted using the authentic technique of coinage by hand.

After the successful introduction of the sale of low-priced tin variants of the coins last year, Antiquanova intends to continue this line this year as well. The customer can choose between gold, silver and tin variants of coins, or brass and aluminium replicas of mediaeval coins. Petr Sousek’s opinion is that: “While the coins in precious metal will be sought after mainly by collectors, the newly stamped coins of common metals, given their favourable price (from Euro 0.75), will be of interest as “props” of various antiquity enactment groups, RPG players and the like.”

An overview of the new coinages marketed in April 2005:

ANCIENT GREECE

• Stater Istros (silver and tin)

• Dekadrachm Syracuse (silver and tin)

• Obol Naxos (silver)

• Tetradrachm Amphipolis (silver and tin)

 ANCIENT ROME

•  Aureus, Faustina jr. (gold) – resumed coinage

CELTS

• Stater of the Boii tribe (silver and tin) – second Boii coin of the “BIATEC” type

 MIDDLE AGES

• Bohemia, Denarius of Boleslav I (silver and aluminium) – one of the earliest Czech coins

• Moravia, Denarius of Břetislav (silver and aluminium)

• Bohemia, Bracteate of Otakar II (silver and aluminium) – first coin to display the image of the Bohemian lion with two tails

• Bohemia, gold Ducat of Charles IV (gold and brass) – on the anniversary of his being crowned the Roman Emperor in 1355

 COINS AFTER 1500

• Bohemia, ½ Joachimsthaler (silver and aluminium) – “the forerunner of the dollar”

DESIGNER’S COINS

• Medal of the Templar order on the 700^th anniversary of the castle of Templstein (silver) – resumed coinage

REDUCED PRICES

• Heavy gold coins at reduced prices regardless of the increasing gold price.

MORE UPDATES

• Some of the early coinages of mediaeval coin replicas of precious metals are now available in common metals (brass, aluminium).

• A renewed offer of sets of coins at reduced prices – starting with the “Syracuse silver set” consisting of 3 replicas of Syracuse coins.

• The pages describing the individual items (coins) have been updated with additional exciting information, mostly drawn from WIKIPEDIA.

• Credit card shopping made even easier – each item can be added to the shopping basket directly from its own page.

• Newly added sections: FAQs and PR (Newsroom).

The privately-owned mint and medal makers ANTIQUANOVA of Petr Sousek and Pavel Neumann from Brno (Czech Republic) specializes in the making of high-quality art coins and medals in historical or pseudo-historical style. It is one of the few mints in the world which applies the original historical minting procedures: using hand-engraved steel, iron or bronze dies, the dies are stamped manually or on a screw minting press. The material of the coins by Antiquanova consists of a range of metals from gold to aluminium. The mint produces mainly replicas of ancient and historical coins, tokens, medallions, and coins made to its own or customer designs, as well as pseudo-historical or coin-derived jewellery. Since 2000, Antiquanova has been supplying its products to museums, numismatists, collectors and history enthusiasts from all over the world.

Contact:

Pavel Neumann
ANTIQUANOVA
http://www.antiquanova.com