Hephaestus—God of the Fire, Gods series, Niue Island 2019, 2 Dollars, 2 oz, 45 mm, antique finish ultra high relief coin, selective gilding, client: Numiartis, producer: Mint of Poland.
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Third coin in this series after Ares and Poseidon. See fourth coin: Apollo.
They said about this coin:
„Incredible Silver Coin.” Backyard Bullion on YT
Mr. Hephaestus, a big muscle man is working in the forge. This room seems to be too small for him. He is a little clumsy—according to mythology, he was “shrivelled of foot”.
Hephaestus is forging a sword. His clumsy fingers are holding the pincers of the blacksmith. Behind him we see the armour, sword and famous shield of Achilles, and by his right leg the helmet of Achilles. Behind Hephaestus’ back are the blacksmith’s tools and the thunderbolts of Zeus.
On the initial sketch the hammer strike looks different, but it seemed to unnatural to me. So I changed the hand position on the final design. See below.
The shield of Achilles was drawn as a separate element. I drew it according to the description in the Homer’s Iliad. The first circle is the sea, earth, sky, sun, moon and stars. Then there is a circle with two cities. On the one side we see a dancing wedding procession, two men quarreling over payment for a murder. On the other side of this circle: a city siege. The next circle depicts the harvest, cattle, and vine growing. Next are girls and boys dancing the Ariadne dance that Daedalus invented. The last circle is fulfilled by Oceanus—the outer sea.
After inserting this picture, I found one mistake on my drawing. Do you see it? 🙂
