Collector Coin to Honor the Olympics and Paralympics

The National Bank of Hungary (MNB) has issued a silver collector coin of HUF 10,000 and its HUF 2,000 non-ferrous metal version named ‘XXXII. Nyári Olimpiai és XVI. Nyári Paralimpiai Játékok’ (Games of the XXXII Olympiad and the XVI Paralympic Games).

The Games of the XXXII Olympiad and the XVI Paralympic Games will be held in Tokyo in summer 2021. The collector coins have been issued to honor these events and to also recognise the achievements of Hungarian athletes.

Tokyo will host this global sporting event for the second time. This time, new sports will be included or reinserted in the programme: in addition to baseball/softball, surfing, skateboarding, climbing wall and karate are added to the Olympic events while badminton and taekwondo to the paralympic events replacing yacht racing and the football played by teams of seven visually-impaired players.

11,000 athletes will participate in 339 events in 33 sports at the 2021 Olympics. Consistent with expectations, 150-160 members of the Hungarian Olympic Team will represent Hungary. The best at 22 sports will compete in 540 events at the Paralympic Games. Hungarian Paralympic athletes stand a chance to qualify in 13 sports. Based on results in recent years, they can win gold medals in various sports.

The ‘XXXII. Nyári Olimpiai és XVI. XVI. Nyári Paralimpiai Játékok’ collector coins play their primary role as a store of value and to raise awareness of the athletes’ achievements they are not to be used in everyday payments. Their face value serves to preserve the value the coins represent to collectors.

The silver and the non-ferrous metal versions are issued with the same design, with their denominations being the only difference. Designed by applied artist Zoltán Endrődy, these collector coins focus attention on the Hungarian Olympic and Paralympic teams in their design by enhancing sports Hungarian sportspeople are successful at.

Therefore, as a central motif on the obverse, an abstract representation of kayaking, swimming and fencing is shown. These sports are considered a success among all Hungarian sportspeople. The athletes, represented in forms broken into geometric planes (canoeist, swimmer and a fencer in a wheelchair) are to represent the partnership and the integration of the two Hungarian teams. The lettering ‘MAGYAROSZÁG’ (Hungary) is placed around the representation of the athletes with the two endpoints connected by a circular line running on the edge. The compulsory design elements of legal tender are found on the obverse: the denominations ‘10 000’ and ‘2000 FORINT’, the mint year ‘2021’ and the mint mark ‘BP.’ containing security features in micro lettering. Visible when magnified at least 10,000, a microlettering, identical with the specific letter in the mint mark, is placed in the mint mark and it also provides protection against counterfeiting. The master mark of Zoltán Endrődy, the designer of the coin, is shown to the left of the fencer in a wheelchair.

On the reverse, the logos of the Hungarian Olympic Team, representing cohesion and of the Hungarian Paralympic Team enhancing equality, are seen which is framed by the lettering ‘MAGYAR OLIMPIAI ÉS PARALIMPIAI CSAPAT’ (Hungarian Olympic and Paralympic Team) on the edge of the reverse and the line connecting the endpoints of the lettering. Next to the logos, on the left and the right-hand side, the official name of the games of five rings, the inscription ‘TOKYO 2020’ is placed broken in two parts. This is the first time in the history of the world’s biggest sporting events that the Olympic and Paralympic Games were postponed due to the pandemic caused by coronavirus, and this postponement did not entail a change in the name.