Austrian Gold Philharmonic Coins

Also known as Vienna Philharmonic Coins, the first set of Austrian Gold Philharmonic coins were produced by the Austrian Mint in 1989. Actually, the coin was first produced to celebrate the Vienna Orchestra, and this is evident in the unique designs on both sides of the coin. The obverse of the coin has an engraving of the picture of a pipe organ, and the reverse shows a picture of musical instruments such as the horn, cello, violins and bassoon. These designs are works of the Austrian Mint chief engraver himself, Thomas Pesendorfer. These designs have never been changed, with the only difference among the denominations being their face values and weight. Today, it has gradually become one of the most popular coins that are produced on a large scale in Europe.

In 1989 when it was first produced, it only came in two denominations (1oz and 1/4oz). Three more denominations, 1/2oz and 1/10oz and 1/25oz, were added in 1994 and 1991 and 2014 respectively. The Philharmonic coin has enjoyed glorious times as it first shot itself to prominence in 1990 when it became the bestselling coin in Europe and the second best is the whole world. In some years, it was actually the bestselling coin in the world. The Philharmonic coin is one of the few coins to have their face values in Euros with the 1/25oz, 1/10oz, 1/4oz, 1/2oz and 1oz denominations all having face values of €4, €10, €25, €50 and €100 respectively. To celebrate the coin’s 15 years’ mintage anniversary in 2004, the “big Phil” was unveiled. The coin is a very big coin, weighing 1,000oz and with a face value of €100,000, and only 15 copies of this 31.103kg were made. 5 years later, a 20oz coin with a face value of €2,000 was produced to mark the 20 years’ mintage anniversary of the Philharmonic.