The Shanghai Mint, one of the official mints of the People’s Republic of China, has struck medals to honor the 30th anniversary of Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (NGC). The medals were struck in gold, silver and a special trimetallic composition.
| Trimetallic NGC 30th Anniversary Medal | |
This is the first time an official government mint has issued medals to celebrate a third-party coin grading service.
The medal’s obverse centers around a magnifying glass, a tribute to NGC’s coin authentication, attribution and grading services. Within the magnifying glass are the dual dates of 1987 (the year NGC was founded) and 2017 (the year the medal was struck), along with the text 30TH ANNIVERSARY. The magnifying glass’ handle is inscribed with NGC.
Around the perimeter of the obverse are the scales from NGC’s logo (representing the company’s commitment to impartiality) and the inscriptions NUMISMATIC GUARANTY CORPORATION and SHANGHAI MINT.
The reverse depicts the skylines of the four cities where NGC has offices: Sarasota, Florida; Shanghai; Hong Kong; and Munich, Germany.
The medals carry the prestige of being official issues of the Shanghai Mint, which is a subsidiary of China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, the entity responsible for printing China’s paper money and minting its coins.
A collaboration with the Shanghai Mint on the NGC 30th Anniversary Medal was a logical step for NGC, which has had a presence in China for more than a decade and has graded nearly 2,400,000 Chinese coins. In addition to offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong, NGC has a network of four Strategic Partners and five Official Submission Centers in China.
The NGC 30th Anniversary Medal was created by noted Chinese designer Luo Yonghui, who, during his decades-long employment at the Shanghai Mint, designed such distinctive coins as the 1989 10 Yuan Silver Panda. He also designed a 2012 high relief medal celebrating the 40th anniversary of the warming of relations between China and the US.
NGC started from humble beginnings in 1987 as a small office in New Jersey that graded a thousand coins a week, said Mark Salzberg, chairman of NGC. Thirty years and 39 million coins later, our reputation for accuracy, consistency and integrity has made us a global numismatic powerhouse, grading millions of coins each year.
| Gold NGC 30th Anniversary Medal | |
| Silver NGC 30th Anniversary Medal | |
With a diameter of 33 millimeters, the medals are slightly wider than a Kennedy Half Dollar. The Shanghai Mint struck 30 in 30 grams of .999 gold, 300 in 30 grams of .999 silver and 3,000 on a newly invented trimetallic planchet that is made from three different copper alloys fused together. (On the obverse, one of the alloys forms the rim of the magnifying glass, creating a boundary that separates the remaining two alloys, including the one at the highly reflective center.)
The trimetallic design of the NGC 30th Anniversary Medal is reminiscent of bimetallic coins popular in China, such as the 2016 Year of the Monkey Bimetallic 10 Yuan and the 2015 Chinese Aerospace Bimetallic 10 Yuan.
Please note that the NGC 30th Anniversary Medals are not available outside of China.