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Obverse : Logo of the Tea 150th Anniversary with · 1867 - 2017 · on top. Wreath composed on either side of five "Two leaves and Bud" which signifies the high leaf standard that ensures the production of fine Ceylon Tea. Within plain circle Spotted Ceylon Lion standing facing left with sword in right paw. CEYLON TEA SYMBOL OF QUALITY in two lines. Below large 150 all within plain circle.
Reverse : The large numeral 10 at the centre with රුපියල් දහයයි in Sinhala, பத்து ரூபாய் in Thamil and TEN RUPEES in English below. Mint Year 2017 below text, flanked by ears of paddy on either side. ශ්රී ලංකා in Sinhala appear at the apex இலங்கை in Thamil on left, and SRI LANKA in English on right. A geometric design around the periphery.
Trivia
As announced the design on the obverse is the 150th Anniversary of Ceylon Tea logo. The Lion with 17 spots is the gazetted intellectual property of Sri Lanka Tea Board.
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A pair of Coins embedded in wood was presented in a small teak stained box (93x53x22 mm)
with a lid on top of which was the logo and text 150 Years of Ceylon Tea
at the bottom of which is a text description of the logo.
CBSL has made no arrangement to make the coin available to collectors and in their Press release just say The coin will be issued into circulation from 13.07.2017 through licensed commercial banks and can be used for payments amongst other currency notes and coins in circulation.
I thank Mr Anslem Perera, Chairmen of the Colombo Tea Traders Association for inviting me to the launch at CBSL and for the presentation box and coin. I thank Dominic Sansoni for the kind introduction. The coin was scanned at 600 dpi and the images displayed at 254 dpi. Also displayed above are scans of Artwork sent to Kremnica Mint taken from the CBSL press release.
Read my article which was published as Don't confine commemorative coin for 150th anniversary of Ceylon Tea to prestige only in the Sunday Times of 2017 July 16th.
The Colombo Tea Traders Association made available 280? more boxes to those who came to the 150th Anniversary Book Launch and Charity Tea Auction @BMICH on 2017 July 20th and contributed Rs500 to the Colombo Tea Traders Charity Trust. I was told they sold out at function.
These boxes were made of
Lunumidalla
a wood in the Mahogany family of trees which was used to make original
Tea Boxes. On my recommendation the coins were not pasted down.
The logo is also printed on the inner surface of top lid.
Note the logo is green on silver, rather than silver on green, probably as the
background without he dark stain is too light for a silver print.
Be careful if opening as the print had not dried before it was
wrapped in cellophane, which had stuck to the logo printed on top and
peeled when the box was unwrapped.
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The Charity Auction lasted 40 min and raised lkRs71.2 Million (US$485,000) to uplift and improve the social, educational and health standards of the children of tea plantations.
See article on the Scientific Cultivation of Tea in Ceylon from Scientiic American, 1904 November 19th Issue.
See pre 1903 Monsoon Ceylon Tea token from Canada.
See Trip trip to Ceylon MN, USA which was named in 1899 from a Box of Ceylon Tea.
Weighing each of the 100 coins on a digital pocket scale with a precision of 0.01 grams, I found that the coins weighed between 8.23 amd 8.44 with a mean of 8.318 grams. The distribution had a rms dispersion of 0.043 (0.52% of mean weight). It had a positive skewness of 0.400 and was slightly leptokuratic with an positive excess kurtosis of 0.09. i.e. distribution peaked than normal. The mean and dispersion is practically the same as the standard Rs10 coin minted in Kreminnica in 2013.