The Monnaie de Paris ploughs on with its five-year series of gold and silver coins commemorating ‘Great French Ships’ with this latest piece featuring a nuclear ballistic missile submarine called ‘Le Redoutable’.  Each year they release a coin featuring a sailing ship, a military vessel and a liner. Starting in 2011 with coins featuring the Jeanne D’Arc, The Hermione and the cruise ship, Le France, they continued with a further three in 2012 featuring the La Gloire, L’Amazone and the Pen Duick.

This year has already seen the release of Le Pourquoi Pas? (‘The Why Not’), a sailing ship, and Le Redoutable represents the military vessel, so we only have a liner to come. A previous release in that series from 2011, ‘Le France’, was a quite superb design and won the Best Silver Coin category at the Krause coin of the year awards.

Like previous coins it’s available in three versions; gold at 1/4oz, and silver at 5oz and 1oz. All look as well designed and struck as you would expect from one of the worlds oldest mints. We like the design a lot here, particularly as a submarine can’t be the easiest vessel to infuse dynamism into on a coin.

The Redoutable is the first nuclear submarine with a ballistic missile capability to be built in France. It was inaugurated on March 29th, 1967 at Cherbourg in the presence of General Charles de Gaulle. In over 20 years of service it completed 51 patrols of 70 days each and 83,500 hours of diving covering an estimated distance of 1.27 million kilometers. The Redoutable was retired from service on December 13th, 1991. In 2000, she was removed from the water and placed in a purpose-built 136 meter dry dock. She was made into an exhibition over the next two years and opened as a museum ship in a drydock at the Cité de la Mer naval museum in Cherbourg. The Le Redoutable is the largest submarine open to the public in the world.

At 128 metres long and weighing 8,000 tons, the vessel served her country for exactly 20 years filled with 15 officers and 120 sailors. No doubt a fascinating visit to walk the corridors of a vessel such as this.

OBVERSE: shows The Redoutable diving. In a nod to the eponymous French submarine nuclear programme, a coelacanth is depicted swimming deep under sea. In the background, the ship’s sonar screen completes the composition.

REVERSE: shows a composition common to all five coins dedicated to military vessels in this collection. The silhouettes of the five vessels of the series are crowned by a blue collar on which is found the face value. An arch of chain links frames the yeardate.

The coins sell for € 53, € 415 and the gold, € 420 and come packaged in a themed shipper. All are available for pre-order now.

Сountry:	France
Data of issue:	June 16, 2014
Face value:	10 Euro	50 Euro	50 Euro
Metal:	Silver .900	Silver .950	Gold .920
Weight:	22,2 g	163,8 g	8,45 g
Diameter:	37 mm	18 mm	22 mm
Quality:	Proof	Proof	Proof
Mintage:	5,000 pcs	250 pcs	1,000 pcs