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The Austrian Mint won the Most Artistic Coin Category at the 2019 Krause Coin of the Year Awards (COTY). The winning 50 Euro honoring Sigmund Freud, dated 2017, is part of a three-coin series celebrating the pioneering schools of psychotherapy. The other coins in the series honor Alfred Adler and Viktor Frankl.

Considered the founding father of psychoanalysis, Freud’s work still resonates some 80 years since his death. As described by the Austrian Mint:

Born into a Jewish family on 6 May 1856, in the present-day Czech Republic, Freud, a neurologist, set up his clinical practice in Vienna in 1886. Using a technique called ‘Free association’, in which he encouraged his patients to talk freely without interruption or suggestion, and another known as ‘Transference’, in which patients transfer their feeling from previous relationships onto the relationship with the analyst, Freud made his name as the founder of psychoanalysis, with help from his mentor Josef Breuer (1842-1925). In 1938, Freud and his family fled Vienna for London to escape the Nazis. He died in the British capital in1939, but many terms attributed to Freud, such as ‘Oedipus complex’, ‘super ego’, ‘Freudian slip’ and ‘libido’, live on.

The coin was designed by Mag. Helmut Andexlinger and Herbert Wähner The “‘will to pleasure,” a central element in Freud’s work, is illustrated on the reverse of the coin. The reverse features a portrait of Freud, based on a photo taken in 1926 by Ferdinand Schmutzer. It is surrounded by inscriptions detailing the issuer (REPUBLIK OSTERREICH), denomination (50 EURO) and the date (2017).

The Vienna Schools of Psychotherapy – Sigmund Freud coin is comprised of 0.986 gold. The coin’s diameter is 22.00 mm, and it weighs 7.89 grams. The mintage of the coin is limited to 20,000. It is still available via the Austrian Mint’s website for 414 Euro.