MICROMOSAIC COINS: GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

There were a number of world issues that did well in 2019, but in terms of increase from issue price to current value, the best was probably the third release in Italian dealer Powercoin’s “Micromosaic Passion” series of three-ounce Proof coins issued for Palau that recreate famous art masterpieces using thousands of carefully arranged colored tiles. The 2019 coin is called “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” and depicts the famous 17th-century painting of Dutch master Johannes Vermeer.

The coin was in pre-order from the spring with an issue price of around 400 euros that quickly increased as demand vastly outstripped the supply of this coin. Powercoin’s director Antonello Galletta said that he received orders from distributors for five times the amount of coins minted (which remains at 499 like the first two issues in the series). The coin hit the streets at the very end of the year with just a limited portion of mintage, and the remaining coins should be available by the end of January.

There were only two recent sales of the coin on eBay for $839 and $929, and there are four current Buy It Now offers between $850 and $1,500. This coin benefitted from the huge success of the first issue, the Birth of Venus in 2017, which won a Coin of the Year Award for Most Innovative Coin in Berlin in 2019 and a 2018 Coin Constellation award in 2018 in Moscow, and whose value is around $2,000 today (with the latest sales at $1,556 and $2,456), and the success of the second coin in 2018, the Mona Lisa issue. Antonello said the series will continue in 2020 and end in 2021 with the fifth issue.

To read the complete article, see:
The Coin Analyst: The Most Profitable Modern Coins of 2019 (https://coinweek.com/modern-coins/the-coin-analyst-the-most-profitable-modern-coins-of-2019/)

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