COIN DESIGNS GOING TO LONDON

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31016, 23 March 1966, Page 1

COIN DESIGNS GOING TO LONDON

No Decision Till Mint Comments

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, March 22.

Twenty decimal coin designs and four commemorative designs to be forwarded to London for examination by the Royal Mint were released tonight by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr Muldoon).

“No final decision will be made until after receipt of the Royal Mint’s advice and comments,’’ he said. Mr Muldoon called for public comment on the designs and said all correspondence would be acknowledged and suggestions welcomed.

The designs are for one - cent, two - cent, five-cent, 10-cent, 20cent, 50-cent, and onedollar commemorative coins which will become New Zealand’s new legal tender in July, 1967.

Mr Muldoon said the designs now released were recently considered by the Decimal Coinage Advisory Committee and the Government after receipt of fresh material from several designers who were invited last December to submit suggestions. “The design committee had some difficulty in recommending a unanimous choice,” said Mr Muldoon. “Some of the designs released received only minority support by the committee but the committee kept in mind the fact that birds and flowers will appear on the decimal banknotes and have also appeared on postage stamps. “The committee strongly favoured the use of bold numerals to show new decimal values and because of this the use of existing designs would impose severe design difficulties,”, he said.

Mr Muldoon said the objective had been to ensure an attractive coin.

“The designs now published give only a limited appreciation of the appearance of the coins since they are basically two dimensional line drawings and fail to give the proper impression of the coin when finally struck,” he said. Mr Muldoon said that included in the designs were selections from drawings by Miss Eileen Mayo, of Christchurch, and Mr James Berry, of Wellington. He said new and improved versions of some of the designs originally forwarded to London in November last year were included in the new release.

These were the one cent Southern Cross (Mr M. Gray), two-cent flax bush (Mr E. Fraser) and the 10-cent Maori mask (Mr F. A. Shurrock).

Mr Muldoon said the designs of Professor Paul Beadle, of Auckland, were also being sent to London. He said the advisory committee had no recommendation to make on the petition calling for further consideration of Professor Beadle’s designs. “The design committee has authorised me to release the following statement:

" ’The petition on Professor Beadle’s designs has been studied by the committee. These designs were considered thoroughly at an early stage and were set aside in favour of other designs. They were again considered in December, 1965, and further thoroughly examined at the recent meeting on March 15, 1966. The committee has no recommendation to make with regard to the petition or to Professor Beadle’s designs.’ “As soon as the Royal Mint committee’s comments are received and studied by the Government along with the public reaction to these designs, a final decision will be made.”