See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration! or register with email

Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!

1 Dollar - Elizabeth II Honoré de Balzac and Ewelina Hańska

Issuer Niue
Year 2015
Type Log in to see details
Value 1 Dollar
Currency Log in to see details
Composition Log in to see details
Weight Log in to see details
Diameter Log in to see details
Thickness Log in to see details
Shape Log in to see details
Technique Log in to see details
Orientation Log in to see details
Engraver(s) Log in to see details
In circulation to Log in to see details
Reference(s) Log in to see details
Obverse description Log in to see details
Obverse script Latin
Obverse lettering Log in to see details
Reverse description Log in to see details
Reverse script Log in to see details
Reverse lettering Honoré de Balzac Ewelina Hańska
Edge Log in to see details
Mint Log in to see details
Mintage Log in to see details
Additional information

Niue's practice of licensing its sovereign coinage authority to third-party minting programs has produced some genuinely odd pairings, and this one qualifies. Balzac and Ewelina Hańska conducted a correspondence-heavy romance spanning nearly two decades before marrying in March 1850 — five months before Balzac died. The relationship was conducted largely by letter while Hańska remained on her Ukrainian estate, legally unable to remarry until her first husband's death in 1841.

Niue itself has no meaningful connection to either figure. The coin exists because Polish collector markets respond well to Romantic-era literary subjects, and Niue's mint licensing arrangement makes such issues commercially straightforward to produce.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE