KATHMANDU, Oct 18 – Department of Mint, Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has launched the sales of six different proof type commemorative coins of Buddha series, produced by Singapore Mint, made of gold, silver and Nordic gold to the general public from Wednesday.
All the coins bear different postures of Buddha on their head and the symbols of regular coins on their tail. The coins also carry a short introduction to Nepal in Chinese and English languages.
These coins are minted as desired by the Singapore Mint but with prior approval from NRB on their style. Singapore Mint pays 31,000 Singapore dollar in royalty to NRB for minting the coins. This is the fourth series on Buddha.
Besides its regular business, the Department sells souvenir or commemorative coins depending on the demand of foreign minting agencies as they mint them at their own cost. NRB does bear any cost in such minting.
Damodar P Sharma, Chief Manager at the Department of Mint says giving approval to mint such coins to foreign mints has but no disadvantage. “First it fetches foreign currency to NRB as royalty. Secondly, it helps to familiarize Nepal abroad thereby boosting the tourism industry without losing anything”, says Sharma. He believes that circulation of such coins help establish the truth that Lord Buddha was born in Nepal.
It is painstaking, expensive and time-consuming to mint commemorative coins. So they are expensive and are not minted in large quantities. The minting agency can fix the price of those coins exceeding their face value. But NRB gets the coins at their production cost.
The 300-milligram coin is the smallest coin ever since the Department came into existence, say officials. Though tiny, the coin is very attractive and bears very clear image of Lord Buddha. At the current gold price, the Department would earn about Rs 300 thousand if all the coins were sold, says Sharma.
Mostly foreigners and a few Nepali collectors buy such coins. Besides the souvenir coins, foreigners also buy regular but fresh notes paying higher price than their face value. Foreign colleges also buy such notes and coins, it is said.
Earlier, the department sold similar coins of wildlife series with the images of tiger, rhino, snow leopard and leopard. It also sells sets of Re 1, Rs 2, 5 and 10 packet of regular notes to foreigners at Rs 28 with Rs 10 margin and the buyers have to pay certain amount of tax on it.
Owing to lack of proper technology, Nepal cannot produce such fine quality commemorative coins, says Sharma.