Moon Landing Popular COTY Theme
A pandemic won’t stop COTY. The nomination process for the 2021 Coin of the Year awards looked a bit different this year, but the program is well under way despite travel and gathering restrictions due to COVID-19. One-hundred nominees – 10 coins in each of 10 award categories – emerged after the Nominating Committee met virtually Nov. 3, 2020, to consider 400 coin nominees curated by more than 45 issuing entities from around the world.
The 38th annual awards program, honoring coins dated 2019 and to be presented in early 2021, is presented by World Coin News, sister publication to Numismatic News, and sponsored by The Journal of East Asian Numismatics. The competition begins each year when the committee convenes to select the nominees.
“Our COTY Nominating Committee traditionally has met in person to review and nominate coins from a large printed catalog of potential candidates,” explained Tom Michael, COTY coordinator. “The pandemic made that impossible in 2020, so our team created digital files, devised a two-step nomination process and moved our in-person meeting onto a virtual platform. The Nominating Committee was so pleased with the efficiency of this new approach that we are already planning to adopt many of its elements permanently.”
The change in process also had positive effects on the way coins were nominated, resulting in
