11 April 2024
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As the 2024 Olympic Games get closer, the Monnaie de Paris has been paying tribute to the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games through a coin collection honouring sport, its values and athletes but also the host country’s heritage over the past four years.
The Eiffel Tower Coin
Significantly for this year’s Olympics, the Games will be held in the heart of the city, with iconic Parisian locations in the spotlight. In the 2024 series of coins, the first heritage site to be honoured is the Eiffel Tower with a €10 silver coin. The observe of the coin illustrates the structure of the Eiffel Tower, while the reverse shows a view of Paris where the river Seine takes on the look of an athletics track. Variations of the coin are available to buy now with prices starting at €52.
Constructed in just over 2 years, the Eiffel Tower design by Gustave Eiffel, Maurice Koechlin, Emile Nouguier and Stephen Sauvestre, was selected from 107 entries after a competition was launched in 1886 to build a tower 300m high for the Universal Exhibition taking place in Paris in 1889. The tower was constructed from 18,000 pieces put together in sections 5m long at a factory on the outskirts of Paris and proved an immediate success with over 1 million visitors during the duration of the Universal Exhibition, paving the way for the Eiffel Tower to become the major symbol of both Paris and France that it is today.
The Olympic Coins Collection
The Monnaie de Paris has been releasing coins to celebrate the 2024 Olympics since 2021, with coin series on sports and heritage being produced in each year. In this fourth and final year of the Monnaie de Paris issues for the 2024 Olympics, there will be another four coins on the theme of heritage. After the issue of the Eiffel Tower coin, the remaining issues will be for Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Arc de Triomphe. Last year coins were introduced celebrating other iconic locations in Paris including the Palace of Versailles, House of Invalids and the Louvre.
