Colorized coins

Colorized coins have always had a steady clientele in the market who preferred their coins glitzier than the original ones. The United States Mint has not minted a colorized coin until now. For the first time ever in its history, the mint released the Basketball Hall of Fame Commemorative Silver dollar and Half dollar as colorized coins.

How are Colorized coins made?

Coin dealers have been using three basic processes of coin colorizing over the years: colorful appliqué or the hologram method, the color printing method, and the cold enamel process. Cold Enameling is the most expensive and labor-intensive process of coloring coins. It involves adding layers of paint on the cells on the surface of the coin.

Colorized coins from around the World

Canada, China, and Australia are countries that release high quality colorized coins every year. In 2004, Canada issued the first colorized circulating coin, the 25-cent Poppy coin to honor the Canadian Remembrance Day. A red poppy was stamped with pressurized ink on its reverse with an innovative fluorescent security coating. Australia also issues many colorized coins. To celebrate the Year of the Rabbit in 2011, the Royal Australian Mint used color and silver on a 50-cent coin. The first ever colorized coins were released in 1992 by Palau, a Pacific island nation.

2020 Basketball Hall of Fame coins

The U.S. Mint will be using an outside contractor for applying color to the colorized versions of the 2020 Basketball Hall of Fame silver dollar and copper-nickel clad half dollar.

The obverse design features three players reaching for the ball in unison, reflecting how the sport of basketball has brought together diverse people around the world through a simple, universal, and unifying athletic experience. Their arms are slightly elongated to emphasize the full exertion of physical and mental energy required to excel in this sport. The rim and net are subtle background design elements complementing the three players.

The reverse design depicts a basketball about to pass through the net. The Half-dollar design depicts an orange basketball with black channels about to pass through a white net and an orange rim. The basketball and the rim are presented in two distinct shades of the familiar orange hue associated with the sport and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The only difference in the Silver dollar is that the ball is not colorized.

The historic United States Mint Basketball Hall of Fame Commemorative Colorized Coins are the first to have color applied to their design elements. All the coins in this three-coin program (gold $5 coin, silver dollar, and clad half dollar) share a common design and are curved.