The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, presided yesterday at the Juan Sebastián Elcano School Ship, in the Port of Cadiz, the presentation of the new two-euro coin commemorating the fifth centenary of the first round-the-world voyage of Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano.
With the new coin “we do not pay homage only to a great sailor, but we want to affirm emphatically that our country today continues transcending borders in an increasingly globalized time”, declared Albares during the act, in which also participated the Admiral Chief of Staff of the Navy (AJEMA), Antonio Martorell Lacave, and the commercial director of the National Mint, Jose Miguel Fernandez de Liencres.
The minister also recalled that Spain has submitted the candidacy of the First Circumnavigation of the Earth for inscription on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. “We trust and work every day for the United Nations to recognize the values of the expedition and ensure the preservation of its memory”, because “the world was never the same after that feat”, continued the minister.
Likewise, Albares highlighted the “unrenounceable” condition of Spain as a “bridge between Europe and America” and the importance of Cadiz as a “city intimately linked to Latin America” and affirmed that the Spaniards can be “very proud” of what the Spanish Navy’s Juan Sebastian de Elcano School Ship represents, a “flagship of science and technology” with which “we wish to continue exploring routes in the seas and to unite peoples”.
For his part, Admiral Martorell affirmed that, with the new commemorative coin, homage is also paid “to the rest of the sailors of the expedition”, those who survived and those who died, “and to the Crown of Spain, which had the audacity to lead this expedition”. Likewise, the commercial director of the Mint emphasized that Cadiz “is the best place where we could make this presentation”.
The obverse of the new coin – the so-called “national side”, since the reverse is common for all the States of the Eurozone – is dedicated to the fifth centenary of the Around the World Race. As established by the Government last December, in the center of the obverse, and on a background of a globe, the image of Juan Sebastián Elcano is reproduced, taken from the portrait kept in the Naval Museum of Madrid, on which will appear, in its lower part and in capital letters, the legends 1519 1522, JUAN SEBASTIÁN ELCANO and PRIMUS CIRCUMDEDISTI ME. The coin will be put into circulation on March 23rd and there will be a mintage of one million pieces.
The National Mint (Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre-Real Casa de la Moneda) has already issued in recent years several commemorative coins for the fifth centenary, but these were ten euro coins minted in sterling silver, without the common reverse (in fact, the reverse also includes commemorative motifs) and destined almost exclusively to collectors. The four issues have been produced at an annual rate since 2019 and will conclude in 2022, and coincided with the four years of Magellan and Elcano’s expedition (1519-1522). For its part, Portugal issued in 2019 its own two-euro coin commemorating the V Centenary of the Round the World Voyage, in this case with the image of Ferdinand Magellan.
