Great Southern Land 2022 2oz Gold Proof Opal Coin

The Coin Company is proud to present Great Southern Land 2022 2oz Gold Proof Opal Coin, produced by the Perth Mint.

This beautiful coin features the great southern Australian continent in stunning Australian opal. Since antiquity, European philosophers speculated that a large continent existed in the Southern Hemisphere to ‘balance’ those of the north. Terra Australis was the Latin term they coined to describe the posited great south land which different navigators explored in parts until Royal Navy cartographer Matthew Flinders completed the first circumnavigation of the island-continent now known as Australia in 1803. Europeans were astonished by the exotic wildlife and extraordinary natural treasures they encountered. Familiar to First Nations people for at least 60,000 years, they included the isolated land’s famous pouched marsupials, and opal, which in its most precious form flashes with a brilliant ‘play of colour’.

Opal is Australia’s national gemstone. In ancient Aboriginal Dreamtime stories, it was created when a rainbow touched the earth. It is also known to Indigenous people as the ‘fire of the desert’. Today, Australia produces the overwhelming majority of the world’s precious opal, which when cut and polished can be used to create some of the world’s most alluring jewellery pieces.

Great Southern Land 2022 2oz Gold Proof Opal Coin has a limited mintage of 200 coins.