Four U.S. contenders for coin awards

Four U.S. coins are in contention for the Coin of the Year Award that will be presented Feb. 6, 2016, at the World Money Fair in Berlin, Germany.

An international panel of judges will be reviewing a total of 100 coin nominations to select the top honor as well as winners in 10 categories.

Selected by the nominating committee when it met Oct. 2 in the Iola, Wis., were the gold $5, silver dollar and clad 50-cent commemoratives of the Baseball Hall of Fame program.

Also chosen was the Eleanor Roosevelt First Spouse $10 gold coin.

It was the job of the nominating committee to review all nominations of 2014-dated coins that were made by world mints and other numismatic organizations and individuals.

Choices were made by the nominating committee to narrow the field to 10 nominations in each of 10 categories.

There will now be two rounds of electronic voting to determine first, the category winners, and then the ultimate Coin of the Year winner from among the 10 category winners.

The Coin of the Year Award was created by World Coin News, sister publication to Numismatic News in 1984. In that first year the 1982 U.S. George Washington half dollar was named Coin of the Year.

Since then the award has been given to numerous countries. Last year’s winner was Austria’s 50-euro gold coin honoring artist Gustav Klimt’s life and his painting of “The Expectation.”

The 10 award catagories are:

Most Historically Significant (100 years or older)

Best Contemporary Event (less than 100 years)

Best Gold

Best Silver

Best Crown

Best Circulating Coin

Best Bimetallic Coin

Most Artistic

Most Innovative

Most Inspirational

A list of the 100 nominees for the 2016 Coin of the Year Awards can be found here.

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