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Slovenia’s proposed 2-euro coin, featuring a cloud and writing.
The Financial Times reported on Sunday that Slovenia is the only EU newcomer that "looks certain to join the single currency area on its target date of January 1, 2007… while question marks hang over the two Baltic candidates." (Lithuania and Estonia)
It would seem that the cat is in the bag. And although I’m looking forward to using the euro, I’m not looking forward to looking at them. If you haven’t seen them already, Slovenia’s euro-coin designs are here. Some people already hate them with a fiery passion, and I must say I don’t blame them. Not only because they don’t look anything like what I was hoping for, but because they seem cluttered, clumsy and outdated. I’ve always liked the current coins and bills — not to mention the all-too-beautiful stamps. Slovenia has always been consistently good at this stuff. It just didn’t seem to work out this time, unfortunately.
The biggest problem with them, I think, is that they’re just too busy. If you look at some of the other designs, you’ll notice that they rarely have any inscriptions beyond the name of the country (sometimes) and maybe the name of the person. The Slovenian coins, by contrast, are jammed full of sentences, explanations and slogans all over the place: "Stati inu obstati," "Katedrala svobode," "lipicanec," the first verse of the national anthem, and Oj Triglav, moj dom — the title of an old patriotic poem. To make matters worse, "Slovenija" is written on all of them, but interspersed with stars so that it’s difficult to read. The one-euro coin, for example, looks like a bowl of alphabet soup, with stars. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nowhere near as bad as those from Holland or Luxembourg. I just think they could’ve put together something much, much better looking.
That said, here are some interesting tidbits about the coins:
1) The prince’s stone on the two-cent piece is actually in Austria. This caused some conniption fits in Klagenfurt and the Carinthian state government officially protested. (They were ignored.)
2) The cathedral of freedom on the 10-cent piece also isn’t in Slovenia. It was never built.
3) The horses on the 20-cent piece are another sore point for Austria, since the horses are closely linked to Vienna’s famous Spanish Riding School.
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Well, as I have pointed out before, at least they are more like Spanish ones than Estonian ones (which seem to have been produced by a miserably unimaginative designer and authorised by authorities even more so).I guess all the inscriptions aim to distinguish the country(’s coins) from (those of) Slovakia.
I really don’t agree on point 3! I guess it is more the austrians taking slovene symbols as their own. The lipicanci are from Lipica,whisch i guess is clear that is not in austria, but close to sežana.
Call me unimaginative - but I personally favour the Estonian design. Clean cut, modern… Not trying to cram the nation’s history into a couple of pieces of metal. It’s as if we were forcing everybody to look at the family photo album. Who in Europe actually gives a rat’s about Preseren? Or prince’s stone? Or Queen Beatrix?
It’s as if we were forcing everybody to look at the family photo album.I couldn’t have put it better myself, Pengovsky. The shame, the shame, the shame!
I rather like the Estonian design myself. But Slovenias ain´t that bad either. I am SO glad that we decided to keep OUR symbol of the Knezji Kamen on one of the coins. It happens to be situated in Austria but it is, whatever the austrians imagine and however much they moan and groan, a sloven/e/ian symbol.Lipizzaner…Lipica…ring a bell? It doesn´t matter that it is in Vienna they strut and do stuff to entertain folks. Lipica is the true home of the horses I believe.Anyway…Slovenija and Austria share so much history that this is non-matter really.
Slovenia being a small country and on a major transit route, you can hope that there’ll be a lot of exchange. Austrian and German coins are indeed more boring, especially the latter.
@Poulette: Oh my, I blush (seriously)! A pat on the back by La Poulette, the queen of mind-bogling syntax! :))))) Now I might even have the courage to post a comment on your blog
I agree with Peter Zrinski. While one can see why the Prince’s Stone is controversial (even though we have every right to see it as our national symbol), there really shouldn’t be any debate about the Lipizzaners. The breed originated in the Slovenian town of Lipica. Period. The location of the Spanish Riding School is irrelevant. If there were, I dunno, a kangaroo training school in Vienna, would the Austrians also claim that animal as their own? I admit it’s a terrible example, but still…BTW, I agree that the coins are way too cluttered. What particularly bothers me is that the word "SLOVENIJA" (or, more accurately "S*L*O*V*E*N*I*J*A") is so hard to read — and even harder to notice.
As much as I appreciate a good design on anything, at the end of the day one
practically never looks at the coins, isn’t that the fact? I mean when a person
is standing at the cashiers, opening the valet and taking the money out, does
he/she pause to check, what is depicted on a coin or he /she just hands it over?
I mean, I spent 1.5 years in the Eurozone, using the money every single day and I never,
I mean never looked to see where the coins are coming from. But hey, maybe
that’s just me…
If there were, I dunno, a kangaroo training school in Vienna, would the Austrians also claim that animal as their own? I admit it’s a terrible example, but still…Not such a terrible example, methinks. It would appear there are a whole lot of folks out there who are convinced the kangaroos roam freely in Austria. Hopefully nobody is going to sue me for assuming most of these people live in the land of the free (and home of the brave). http://www.sagen.at/texte/gegenwart/oesterreich/allgemein/oesterreich.html This Austria/Australia thing does look a bit like our Slovenia/Slovakia mix-up.
I don’t think the coins are particularly ugly but they are somewhat overcrowded. Alphabet soup indeed. I agree with ka-ma that you don’t spend ages contemplating their design in your daily monetary transactions anyway. Regakvak’s only too right about the Austria/Australia confusion. I’ve been asked by an Italian (by an I-T-A-L-I-A-N, i.e. someone from a neighbouring country) if we had kangaroos in Austria. And he was as serious as he was sober.
I have to say I like all of them, exept the ones with the Lpizzaners and Grogar’s "Sejalec": they manage to be boring and kitschy all in one.I love the others, though. Expecially the Cathedral of Freedom, the Triglav design and the Prince Stone. I’d vote for Mr. Bajuk only for putting that one on our coin!! And with SLOVENIJA written on it, he, he. From now on, whenever I go to Austria, I’ll take only the one cent coins with me and I’ll pay everything with them. (Well, maybe the Lipizzaners, too, although they’re ugly… anyway, Austrians wouldn’t notice that).And if anyone wants to know what I think of the whole Prinece Stone controversy, check out this link.
I agree that the sujets are not choosen with much of diplomacy, but
hey, these things truly represent something like slovene core identity.
Thus also showing how deeply it’s involved with Autriche.Speaking
about design: I sincere think they are one of the most interesting
Euro coins out there. They will definitely ba an collectors item.
I checked out the Estonian ones. If that doesn’t call for an impeachment of the Financial Minister I don’t know what it does! They are unexpressibly ugly and inimaginative. If Slovenia had chosen a similar design, I would have moved out, I swear.I think the Greek coins are by far the prettiest of all. Anyone who doesn’t agree with this, has no taste. (I’m in a slightly apodeictic mood today, as some may notice.)
Pengovsky: "Call me unimaginative - but I personally favour the Estonian design. Clean cut, modern… Not trying to cram the nation’s history into a couple of pieces of metal. It’s as if we were forcing everybody to look at the family photo album. Who in Europe actually gives a rat’s about Preseren? Or prince’s stone? Or Queen Beatrix?"ad.1: "Unimaginative!"ad.2: We do. Isn’t that enough. (And besides: it seems Haider also does. And I’d everything to piss him off.)
If one dares to assume that those previously mentioned persons don’t have a clue about native area of that big bird with long neck, whole Austria/Australia mix-up gets a new dimension with a similarity between ostrich and Oesterreich
How about Austrian coins? How dare they pink encijan, planika and jegljiÄ? for their coins!!! These are all Slovene flowers, not Austrian!
Damn! >:)But they are nice. Not too stuffed, and nicely structured: first flowers, then buildings, then people.
@Luka: I’ve been called worse, so I don’t mind. Who’s "we", by the way? ;)But personally, I’d hate to live in a country that’s obsessed with what Haider on any other piece-of-shit politician does. Haider is a fact of life. Either break his legs or live with him. That’s why we have foreign ministry. But that aside: we are doing great disservice to Preseren by plastering him on evevry piece of Slovenia-related material. The guy’s gets more exposure that Britney Spears on a bad hair day! I mean really! As if we had nothing else to put on a euro coin that Preseren and prince’s stone. Preseren is at his best when read or listened to. But not looked at. He was ugly. His image conveys only a fraction of the message his poetry does. Prince’s stone is at its best when sat on. And nobody does that anymore. And so on and so on. Upon sober reflection I must add the following: The only image that works for me at least partially is Grohar’s Sejalec. But that’s it. No more. Slovene euro coin looks as if were designed by an unimaginative student during his (for I’m sure a woman would have done a better job) summer-job.
Pengovsky: "Upon sober reflection I must add the following: The only image that works for me at least partially is Grohar’s Sejalec."Oh, no!! OK, I admit, the idea of putting it on the coin is great. Imaginative, and I love the painting (although I dislike impressionism); then there are all its symbolic connotations (NSK’s remake etc.). But the realization!… Italians would say, "lascia a desiderare" and let’s not go further.
Pengovsky: "But that aside: we are doing great disservice to Preseren by plastering him on evevry piece of Slovenia-related material. The guy’s gets more exposure that Britney Spears on a bad hair day!"“…[I]n Slovenia the Tito personality cult is seriously rivaled by that of the early 19th-century poet-patriot France Preseren, who to Slovenes is Shakespeare, Burns, Bolivar, Dante and Joan-of-Arc rolled into one.”– John Ardagh, A Tale of Five Cities: Life in Europe Today, 1979
My point exactly.
I don’t like the Austrian coins, they leave me clueless. The German
ones are even worse, some say they are so ugly because the Germans
didn’t want the Euro to replace D-Mark. Italian ones are very well
designed.
Sounds to me as if this whole Slovenian Euro coinage is an
opportunity missed. It’s a new type of coinage, right? It
has nothing to do with what was in the past, right? It should
reflect a Forward in All Directions philosophy.What better site for inspiration of forwardness than carnolia.org?COnsider the following:1) Michael’s photographs of the car in the Adriatic.2) Michael’s ilustration of Slovenian Roundabouts.3) Natalija Verboten. Take your pick of any of the obsessive pieces he’s written4) a Burek. This
is just scratching the surface of All Things Slovenian. Why isn;t
Michael offering his services? Waiting for another potential EU
entrant with larger coffers?
Dragan: I agree Italian are nice too. I would put
Finnish on the third place, if only they wouldn’t have six same
coin-faces. One lion I could stomack, but six is too much.— As for Slovene coins, I would like to put forward a motion for a redesign. Or is it too late?
I don’t really have much against each coin individually (except hard to
read parts, like P T R R I U M B O A Ž R, WTF?), but together
there is no sense in them.
I would put two more animals on the bronze coins, Lipicaner,
redesigned maybe and without text on 0.02 and a Ä?loveÅ¡ka ribica on 0.05
(has anyone heard the story about the origin of Ä?loveÅ¡ka ribica? There
is a song devoted to it on the new ÄŒompe album. Very funny.)I
would move the Stone to 0.1 and pick a new motive for 0.2 (Maybe the
Duke’s chair? How much would that piss of Haider? Or perhaps some other
stuff made of stone? A building? A castle? Stalagmite from Postojna?).
Triglav is nice, I like the Cancer part. Without the text, it could be
put a little higher and not so crowded.
On 1 and 2 evros I would put two either famous persons or even
better two of their works, preferrable non-material stuff (anti-stone), like a
picture of Trubar’s Abecedaruim (linguists!) and and PotoÄ?nik’s
(Noodrung’s) design for a stace station.
www.posta.si/Namizje.aspx?tabid=389&artikelid=5572
www.posta.si/Namizje.aspx?tabid=387&artikelid=5401Licul
has usually nice designs, probably the parameters here were too
limiting to make something more sensible. Maybe a new desing from NSK’s
Novi kolektivizem could help somewhat…
it is just amazing how anything can be turned into a national symbol. people talk as if the faith of the slovene nation depends on a bloody picture of a stone. like, somebody is going think more of you because of images of some horses on euro couins. lipicaners? big fuckin’ deal. put some pizza burek there. who cares.they are just freakin’ COINS. MO-NEY.
DarkoV: "4) a Burek."You’re probably thinking of Michael’s obsession with baklava, not the lowly burek, right?
dinash: "like, somebody is going think more of you because of images of some horses on euro couins. lipicaners? big fuckin’ deal."As someone said, it doesn’t matter much what others think of us, but rather what we think of ourselves. And why shouldn’t we be proud of a graceful breed of animal whose home lies amongst the solemn, wind-swept hills of the Karst?"people talk as if the faith of the slovene nation depends on a bloody picture of a stone."Your small typo is appropriate: The fate of the Slovene nation does not depend on some stone, but our faith and our identity does depend on our history. After all, we can only understand where we are today if we take a look back and reflect on the long, perilous, difficult, but nevertheless magnificent road that has brought us here.
i don’t understand how one can be proud of something he/she has nothing to do with. it is like being proud of geographical position of slovenia, or the shape of its borders.And, speaking of histroy, why not put Tito/Kardelj on the coins? They are also part of the "long, perilous, difficult, but nevertheless magnificent road that has brought us here" …
@AZ2SI:"The fate of the Slovene nation does not depend on some stone, but our faith and our identity does depend on our history. After all, we can only understand where we are today if we take a look back and reflect on the long, perilous, difficult, but nevertheless magnificent road that has brought us here."Excellent! You couldn’t have said it better.
previous comment was by me. just noticed a typo there … "histroy" shoould be history. i’m typing this on french keyboard so …
The coins aren’t that bad, actually; there’s a nice range of themes.
The Lippizaner one, though –<
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Si20ct.jpg > –do I simply have
an unusually dirty mind or do they look like they’re Doing It?
AZ2SI,You are correct, as evidenced by this entry, baklava Thanks for picking up on that.However, I must take umbrage, or at the very least, hurt feelings at your terming of the burek as the "lowly burek". Granted,
it is not the prince of desserts as is baklava, but, when done
correctly and served up at a hot temperature, a ham & cheese burek
does the soul well on a cold and rainy morning.
senix: "do I simply have an unusually dirty mind or do they look like they’re Doing It?"Just about everybody that’s seen them (including myself) said that comment :))
Obviously, you just don’t understand Slovenian symbols.
Hey, i don’t think slovenian euro coins are so bad!
Maybe they are a bit overcrowded, that’s true, but in the large they look nice!
In Italy we have coins only figuring some relevant art pieces, i think that every country should put on the coins their “national” symbols, it doesn’t matter if they are the colosseum and the vitruvian man by leonardo instead of a couple of lipizzaner horses and a stork.
Don’t you think? Coins should represent one’s country, nothing more nothing less.
I prefer 8 different designs to 1 design for all coins, but these
are really too busy. They could leave out all the words (except
Slovenija - which shouldn’t be mixed with the stars).
If you want to fire someone in Estonia for the design of euro coins,
you should probably fire the entire nation, as it was chosen from these 10 designs by televoting (so you shouldn’t be surprized that something silly came out of this).
“…[I]n Slovenia the Tito personality cult is seriously rivaled by that
of the early 19th-century poet-patriot France Preseren, who to Slovenes
is Shakespeare, Burns, Bolivar, Dante and Joan-of-Arc rolled into one.”Atatürk probably comes the closest.As for Slovene coins, I would like to put forward a motion for a redesign. Or is it too late?You’re
most likely too late for this issue but the design has to be kept for
at least 5 years, than we can come up with a new one.