Results of the public competition for the design of a €25 silver collector coin commemorating the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Slovak Republic

Reduced first prize and the design selected for the coin
Pavel Károly

Reduced first prize
Branislav Ronai

In November 2016 Národná banka Slovenska (NBS) announced a public competition for the design of a €25 silver collector coin commemorating the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Slovak Republic. A total of eight designs by eight designers were entered in the competition. In January 2017 the designs were evaluated anonymously by the Committee for the Assessment of Commemorative and Collector Coin Designs. The expert advisor to the Committee was Matej Hanula, representing the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

The Committee recommended a design by Branislav Ronai for use on the coin. The Committee praised the design for the way it encapsulated the theme and for its artistry. The rich composition on both obverse and reverse sides is well-balanced. The obverse design depicts the Slovak flag illuminated by sun-beams. A composition resembling a bouquet is created principally from lime leaves. A flying bird with open wings symbolises the celebration of the establishment and development of the Slovak Republic. The reverse depicts the globe with meridians and parallels and a relief map of Europe with the outline of Slovakia. On the left is a sector of the sun with a symbolic relief of a sunflower.

Although the Committee recommended this design for the coin, the governor exercised his right under the terms of public competition which allow him to decide differently from the Committee’s recommendation, and with authorization from the Bank Board of NBS he decided to approve the design by the artist Pavol Károly. The obverse side symbolises the establishment of the Slovak Republic by the transformation of the Czechoslovak flag into the Slovak one in a bow composition surmounted by Bratislava castle. In the lower part of the bow are pictures of the Charles Bridge in Prague and the mountain Kriváň in the High Tatras as symbols of Czecho-Slovakia. On the reverse, the bow formed by the flags is turned into an arch symbolising a gateway to Europe. It expresses the integration of Slovakia, represented by its map, into the European Union. The integration into the euro area is represented by the symbol of the euro with European stars in the upper part of the gateway.

Both designs were awarded a reduced first prize in the competition. No second or third prize was awarded.

In January 2017, the NBS Bank Board approved an amendment to Národná banka Slovenska’s issue plan for commemorative and collector coins in 2018 to include a €2 commemorative coin marking the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Slovak Republic. At the same time, it decided that the design of the coin’s national side would be a modification of one of the successful designs in the public competition for a silver collector coin with this theme.

In February 2017, the NBS Bank Board decided that the commemorative coin would use a modified version of the reverse in the design by Pavel Károly which was originally selected for the silver collector coin. The author then modified the reverse so that it was suitable for the national side of the commemorative coin.

Pavel Károly: National side of the € 2 commemorative coin