Gold Tenth-Ounce 2020 Mythical Creatures - Phoenix, Coin from Niue - detailed information

Niue, a sovereign state in free association with New Zealand, uses two official legal tender currencies. The New Zealand Dollar is the circulation currency for daily transactions, while the government also authorises legal tender coins in the Niue Dollar currency for collector's purposes.

A number of mints issue a large variety of commemorative and collector coins under the authority of Niue. These coins are dedicated to historical or general popular culture themes not related to Niue itself. Many of them are in standard bullion sizes - such as a tenth ounce of gold (abbreviated as 1/10 oz Au, where "Au" comes from the Latin word for gold, Aurum).

This coin is part of the Mythical Creatures series of premium bullion coins by the Czech Mint and features the legendary Phoenix.

We know the word phoenix from Greek, but mythical birds endowed with supernatural power occur in the mythology of many nations. It is called Bennu in Egypt, Garuda and Bherunda in India, Simorgh in Persia, Paskunji in Georgia, Anqa in Arabia, Konrul in Turkey, Me Byi Karmo in Tibet, Fenghuang and Zhu Que in China, Hō-Japons in Japan and Firebird in Slavic folklore. Each of them represent different values - while Fenghuang expresses the harmony of feminine and masculine principle, Anqa was bird of prey that was destroyed by God...

But all these birds have one thing in common - they symbolise the eternal cycle of rebirth. This cycle takes the following form: the old phoenix burns itself to death and dies every five centuries in order to rise from the ashes in full force.

The reverse design is by Mária Filová; the obverse is by Asamat Baltaev - who also designed the reverses of some coins in the series.