I woke up this morning to the 1985 hit by Falco being played on a local classic rock station to celebrate the 250th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In his day, Mozart was the 18th Century’s Elvis, John Belushi, and Beatles all rolled into one genius, but tragic figure. Since Mozart is a favorite of mine from that era of music, I wondered if there were any commemorative coins released in his honor.

My first stop was the Austrian Mint to see what they had to offer. There, I found that Mozart graces the reverse of the Austrian 1 Euro coin. I also found The official Collector’s Set for the Mozart Year 1991 memorializing the 200th anniversary of his death. The commemoratives are a series of four gold and silver coins. Two were dedicated to the operas “The Magic Flute” and “Don Giovanni.” The other two were dedicated to Salzburg and Vienna, where Mozart worked. But no 2006 commemoratives.

In keeping with the 200th anniversary of his death, I found a Turkish 50 thousand Lira coin at the Turkish Mint. Not being fluent in Turkish I do not understand the writing on the coin, but it is a very pretty design.

Then I went to eBay, where you can buy just about anything! I searched for “Mozart” in coins and found a 1991 gold 500 Franc coin from France commemorating Mozart in Paris, several 1991 Austrian 100 Shilling proof coins, various 1931 coins honoring his 175th birthday, and a German gold coin from 1991. Still, no 2006 commemorative for Mozart.

Another web search led me to the 2006 Austrian Mint Coin Release Schedule. There, it says that a 5 Euro circulating commemorative will be issued for Mozart on May 10, 2006. Otherwise, I found nothing else to suggest that a Mozart commemorative has been issued. Too bad!

Here is a project for a young numismatist: research and catalog all of the Mozart coins and medals that one could collect. In fact, finding other coins by topic, such as composers, might be a lot of fun. Too bad I do not have the time for this.

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