5 Santīmi

In his extensive study of the 1, 2, and 5 santimi coins of the first Latvian Republic, Mihails Božko uncovered many historical facts. Some results of his efforts are summarized below. More details can be found in his articles (in Russian) and in this explanatory video (in Russian). Mints All coins of this type were produced Huguenin Frères & Cie (Le Locle, Switzerland) and carry the mint name below the ribbon on the obverse. ‘Variants’ with or without mint or designer name Weebly.com It is often assumed, on the basis of information from the Standard Catalog of World Coins, that there are two variants of the 5 santimi 1922. Over time, the description of this ‘variation’ changed from with or without designer’s name to with or without mint name: The reason for the acknowledgement of alleged variants of the 5 santimi (and equally of the 1 santims and 2 santimi), is that by design, the lettering of the mint and designer name is very delicate and even hard to read by the naked eye. Some coins seem to be missing one or the other, or both, but do show (weak) traces of them on a closer look. Because of the small and subtle nature of the lettering, apparent absence of the mint or designer name has to be attributed to die wear and die filling at the mint or post mint circulation wear and corrosion. Positive attribution of a missing mint or designer name is possible only for high grade examples, having the coin at hand (rather than from an image). There is no ground to assume structural variation within any of the years of the 5 santimi. The 1923 Patterns The Latvian government was not satisfied with the quality of the dies of the 1922 strike. In response, Huguenin Frères prepared new dies for the 1923 strike, with an improved, more pronounced relief. Sample coins were sent to the Latvian government, but ultimately, no more 5 santimi coins were ordered. According to official contemporary documents, the pattern coins had a weight of 3.5 g. In the 1990-ies, all 1923 pattern coins preserved in the Latvian National Archive were stolen and offered for sale to a coin dealer. The mintage reported in SCWC is actually the number of patterns acquired by this dealer. More copies may still be at large. In addition, Huguenin Frères has an unknown number of these pattern coins in their archive. The mintage of 2 is the lowest estimate, the exact number is unknown