Silver Coin
New Year Coin 2021 Janus

We all need a bit of luck to help us deal with the current challenges. For the Ancient Romans, the god Janus held the key to good luck. They would pay homage to Janus on New Year’s Day by giving each other coins upon which his two faces were minted: his old one looking back to the past, his young one optimistically looking forward to the future. Those two faces feature on the New Year Coin 2021.

It is the young one that we need to take inspiration from if we are to overcome the exceptional circumstances of the past year. They have been a severe test, but we are better off facing them with youthful optimism. In this sense, this New Year Coin can help us find the key to a bright future. Out with the old, in with the new!

The month of January gets its name from Janus. Before every undertaking the Ancient Romans would pray for his blessing. Among other things, he was the god of doors and gates and a conciliator between the past and the present. Janus also ruled over the daybreak. An opulent temple was dedicated to him in Ancient Rome, the doors of which symbolised that peace was over when they were opened at the start of each new war, enabling Romans to enter and plead for victory.

The doors of the temple of Janus can be seen in the background of the coin’s reverse, above them a clock face with a starry sky and the sun at one end. The centre foreground is dominated by an ornate key bearing the year 2021 on its bow. The two faces of Janus, one old and bearded, the other much younger, look in opposite directions on either side of it. The obverse of the nine-sided coin shows the coats of arms of the nine provinces of Austria arranged in a circle.

2021 Janus (PDF | 413.22 KB)