The stories of “Baron von Munchausen” are known in many places. On the occasion of his 300th birthday, the German Mint is honoring the imaginative storyteller with a colored 20 euro collector's coin in sterling silver. This is the second colored coin from the German Mint and shows Munchausen in blue and red.
Coloured coins, such as the collector's coin “Baron von Münchhausen's 300th birthday”, go through a complex Minting process that includes an additional production step. Here the coloring is applied using pad printing, a precise and durable indirect gravure printing process. The Münchhausen coin is decorated The marginal inscription “With Bravery and the Presence of Spirit” and shows on the picture side an illustration of Munchausen's most famous story, the ride on the cannonball. The coin motif was designed by František Chochola.
Some of the stories attributed to Munchausen are said to be based on war experiences from the Russo-Austrian Turkish War, which lasted from 1736 to 1739. The ride on the cannonball is therefore probably based on the siege of an Ottoman Crimean fortress.
To person
Hieronymus Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Münchhausen was born on May 11, 1720 in Bodenwerder. In the service of Anton Ulrich, Prince of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, he spent several years in the military in Russia and Latvia. He then returned to his estate in Bodenwerder and lived there as a country nobleman until his death on February 22, 1797. He was buried in the over 1,000-year-old Romanesque monastery church of Bodenwerder-Kemnade.
Due to the custom of comprehensive and imaginative stories common in German-Baltic aristocratic circles, the time in Latvia most likely had a major influence on Münchausen's storytelling skills. In the years that followed in Bodenwerder, he established his storytelling skills among his friends and so his reputation as an excellent and humorous storyteller increased.
