Catalog
500 Tögrög Velociraptor Mongoliensis
| Issuer | Bank of Mongolia |
|---|---|
| Year | 2001 |
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| Reference(s) | KM#190 |
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| Reverse description | A detailed relief depiction of a Velociraptor mongoliensis dinosaur standing upright in a naturalistic pose, its head raised and jaws open, set against a sparse ground cover of low prehistoric vegetation rendered in fine detail. The species name 'VELOCIRAPTOR MONGOLIENSIS' curves along the upper border in Latin letters, while the date '2001' appears to the right in the field. The overall design conveys a scientifically informed reconstruction of the theropod dinosaur native to Mongolia. |
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| Reverse lettering | VELOCIRAPTOR MONGOLIENSIS 2001 |
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| Additional information |
Mongolia began issuing wildlife and paleontological themed commemoratives in the late 1990s, capitalizing on the country's position as one of the world's most productive dinosaur fossil beds. The Gobi Desert has yielded Velociraptor mongoliensis specimens since Roy Chapman Andrews's American Museum of Natural History expeditions first unearthed them in the early 1920s — the type locality is Mongolian soil, which gives this issue a geographic legitimacy that similar foreign-minted dinosaur coins lack entirely.
Struck at a relatively modest mintage typical of Bank of Mongolia commemoratives from this period, most examples entered private collections immediately rather than circulation.