Results of the public competition for the design of a €10 silver collector coin commemorating the 300th anniversary of the birth of Adam František Kollár

First prize and the design selected for the coin
Zbyněk Fojtů

Third prize
Štefan Novotný

Third prize
Peter Valach

In January 2017 Národná banka Slovenska (NBS) announced a public competition for the design of a €10 silver collector coin commemorating the 300th anniversary of the birth of Adam František Kollár, a scholar and Councillor at the Court of Maria Theresa. A total of twenty designs by sixteen designers were entered in the competition. In April 2017 the designs were evaluated anonymously by the Committee for the Assessment of Commemorative and Collector Coin Designs. The Committee was assisted in its task by an expert adviser, Ľubica Kázmerová, from the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

At the Committee’s recommendation, the NBS Bank Board awarded first prize to a design by Zbyněk Fojtů and approved his design for the coin. The Committee praised the design for the artistry displayed on both the obverse and reverse sides. The obverse design references Kollár’s work by showing a well-ordered period library and the title of one of Kollár’s scientific works Analecta monumentorum omnis aevi Vindobonensia (‘Viennese anthology of texts of all ages’). The reverse is filled with a portrait of Kollár, which, according to the Committee, shows outstanding quality and is a particularly faithful likeness.

No second prize was awarded.

Two third prizes were awarded, one of which was for a design by Štefan Novotný. The obverse of his design depicts the interior of the Imperial-Royal Library in Vienna, where Kollár was First Custodian and eventually Director. The reverse features a finely drawn portrait of Kollár holding a book.

The other third prize went to Peter Valach’s design, which on the obverse shows part of the facade of the Imperial-Royal Library in Vienna and a facsimile of Kollár’s name and position at the library (‘Director’) in his own writing. The reverse depicts a well-rendered portrait of Kollár, juxtaposed with an owl symbolising wisdom. The Committee, however, considered the owl to be superfluous and recommended that it be omitted if the design were selected for the coin.