New Czech record

At the Czech Mint, we broke our own record set last year. After a gold investment coin weighing five kilograms, we managed to strike a specimen of the Czech Lion made of ten kilograms of pure gold!

"This is the largest gold coin minted in continental Europe and the most demanding mintage ever carried out at the Czech Mint. Due to the value of the casing, we did not have the opportunity to carry out a test minting - the very first attempt had to end in success. The risk was enormous, and the preparation for the mintage therefore took several months," says the production director of the Czech Mint, Stanislav Bachtík.

The production of the coin was complicated by its extreme parameters, but also by the fact that it is stamped with the Czech Security Check hologram. This innovative security feature is made up of microscopic reliefs with detail starting at a few nanometres - i.e. billionths of a metre.

The massive coins are minted with the help of a special hydraulic press that was designed specifically for this purpose. This is the only machine of its kind in the world - no other press has such a configuration and technical parameters. Due to its size and considerable weight, we had to build a special workplace for it in Jablonec nad Nisou.

While an ordinary punch weighs around one half kilogram, the weight of punches intended for the production of record coins is calculated at tens of kilograms. These tools take weeks to machine. The forces involved in minting giant coins are astronomical - we can reveal that the press exerts the same pressure as if you stacked a couple of thousand cars on top of each other.