In 1970, when silver was booming, Dr. Günter Gruber started coin trading in Liechtenstein. The company’s activities were confined to sell modern coins of foreign mints on the European market. In order to do so, CIT Coin Invest collaborated with some of the best-renowned mints like the British Royal Mint, the U.S. Mint, or the Italian Zecca dello Stato. Coin Invest Trust became one of the major importers of contemporary coins in Europe. In the middle of the 1980s, many mints discovered the potential for commemorative coins. Their coins flooded the collectors’ world and coincided with a decline of interest in investment products. As a consequence, numerous coin dealers folded. During this time, CIT Coin Invest developed its own way. A profound knowledge of the preferences of collectors prompted the management of the company to create their own products. In 1982, the first one was issued: A Zurich shooting thaler, whose off-strikes in platinum and palladium sold incredibly well, especially on the U.S. market. The following project, in cooperation with the Hungarian Mint, set new standards and showed which path CIT Coin Invest was to take in the future. In 1988, an Albanian commemorative coin celebrating the state railway was issued. On one side, an old train drove into a tunnel; on the other side, a modern train came out. The tunnel was designed as a hole, which was new at the time and extremely demanding to realize from the technical point of view. For this coin, CIT Coin Invest received the highest award the numismatic world has to offer, the COTY. It was not to be the last Coin of the Year Award CIT Coin Invest was honored with. Particularly in the category “most innovative coin,” there is probably no one who was awarded more COTYs. The company maintains contracts with various issuing authorities, for example Mongolia and the Cook Islands; with the latter, the company has had a contract from 2012, which was made exclusive - making CIT the only company allowed to issue Cook Island collector coins - in September 2023. Note that CIT "produces" coins (ie organises their production and marketing), but the striking is outsourced, initially to the US Mint and the Royal Mint, now usually to B.H. Mayer. |
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From Year | 1970 |
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Country | Liechtenstein |
Location | Liechtenstein |
Web | (official site) |
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Catalog of Modern World Coins 1850-1964 |
No mint mark | CIT does not use a mint mark on its coins. |
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