Bank of Lithuania
2012-06-22

A 10 litas collectors’ silver coin dedicated to Fine Arts was issued today. It features a painter’s stylized palette – a painter's tool in his creative work known since antiquity on both sides. The public was introduced to the new coin at Vilnius Academy of Arts where the ceremony of handing Masters diplomas was taking place. 

“A palette might also be the symbol of an artist’s experiments or creative searches.  This is like a field in which nuggets of expression are discovered.  The coin dedicated to Fine Arts may well be called a nugget in Lithuanian numismatics.  It is not only unique in its subject but in that it has a hole on “0”, one of the digits indicating the 10 litas denomination”, Vitas Vasiliauskas, Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania, said.   

It is the first time that the UAB Lithuanian Mint has implemented such an original idea of the coin’s designers Rūta Ničajienė and Giedrius Paulauskis.  

During the presentation of the new coin, the Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania greeted the graduates of Vilnius Academy of Arts and handed the new collector’s coin to each of the fifteen Masters. “I hope more than one of you will enrich Lithuanian numismatics by your creations”, V. Vasiliauskas said after inviting the graduates of Vilnius Academy of Arts to take part in competitions for the designs of collectors’ coins to be announced by the Bank of Lithuania.  

It is the third coin from the 10 litas silver coin series “Lithuanian Culture” with the mintage of 4,000. The author of the text for the brochure of the coin is the art critic Ramutė Rachlevičiūtė. 

Earlier in the series were coins dedicated to Music (2010) and Theatre (2011).   

The Bank of Lithuania has already issued 73 collector’s (commemorative) coins commemorating events significant for our State and for the world history, prominent people, architectural monuments, etc.

Collectors’ coins are sold at the cash offices of the Bank of Lithuania in Vilnius (at Totorių g. 2), Kaunas (at Maironio g. 25), and Klaipėda (at Naujoji Uosto g. 16). The price for the 10 litas silver coin in a display box is LTL 100 (VAT inclusive) or LTL 90 without a display box.