Following up on their 2018 line of Star Trek: The Original Series pure silver collectible ‘coin notes,’ the New Zealand Mint is expanding into The Next Generation with a series of character-themed releases featuring the crew of the Enterprise-D.
Launching the 2019 series is Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the first of six planned silver notes to carry the faces of the familiar TNG regular cast, each to be featured with a memorable moment from the television run on the face of each silver note — and in the case of Captain Picard, his somber flute solo from the end of Season 5’s “The Inner Light.”
The Captain Picard release also comes with a collector’s book to hold all six planned Next Generation notes, just as last year’s Captain Kirk release came with a similar book for the Original Series run.
Here’s what the company has to say about the new Next Generation releases:
With excitement building around the arrival of ‘Star Trek: Picard,’ we are thrilled to reveal the first silver coin note in a new ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation.’ Characters Silver Coin Note Collection from New Zealand Mint, which features the esteemed leader himself, Captain Jean-Luc Picard. This first release comes complete with a six-note collector’s album and shows Jean-Luc as he appeared in the original saga over 20 years ago.
Made from 5g pure silver, this coin note features a striking coloured image of Captain Picard along with an engraved scene showing him playing his Kataan flute. The unique number in the limited-edition mintage is also printed on each coin note and it is packaged inside a ‘Star Trek’ themed protective sleeve.
The obverse of the note features the ‘Star Trek’ insignia and the Ian Rank-Broadley effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to confirm it as a legal tender coin for Niue.
A free ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ Characters Collector’s Album allows you to easily display all six coin notes as they are released: Jean-Luc Picard, Worf, William T. Riker, Deanna Troi, Data and Geordi La Forge. Each page includes a short biography of the character featured on the note. If you’re an avid ‘The Next Generation’ fan, then this is for you!
With a worldwide supply of only 10,000 coin notes, don’t wait to “make it so” and order yours from New Zealand Mint today!
The team at the New Zealand Mint sent us an early release of the Jean-Luc Picard note and book set to check out ahead of this week’s release, which is the first time we’ve really had a chance to get a hands-on look at one of these more unique entries in the world of Star Trek licensed products right now.
Each member of the Enterprise-D crew — with one exception, which we’ll get to in a moment — is nicely represented in the familiar animated likenesses that CBS has been using for Next Generation products for some time now, and it’s nice to see Deanna Troi included wearing her standard blue Starfleet uniform (a nice modification to Marina Sirtis’ TNG Season 5 publicity photo).
Unfortunately, however, there’s a notable lack of Beverly Crusher in this set, something that’s become somewhat of a recurring issue with Next Generation products in recent years.
We confirmed with the team at the New Zealand Mint that this set was, like last year’s Original Series set, planned to be a six-character product line — meaning one of the primary TNG characters was always going to be excluded — but it’s a bit disappointing to see Crusher once again being left on the chopping block.
(Hopefully there will be an opportunity for this character to be included in a future release.)
While the silver notes are technically legal tender in the tiny island nation of Niue, they’re purely collectors’ items here in the United States, where each silver note is being released at a price point of $39 (including the Picard note, which has the display book included in that price).
If you’re interested in adding the New Zealand Mint Star Trek: The Next Generation silver character note set to your collection, you can find the Captain Picard release available for purchase at their online shop now with other characters to follow throughout the remainder of 2019.