Day 18 and we head to the Balkans to the country of Serbia for our calendar coin.
On the obverse we have the coat of arms of Serbia which was officially adopted in 2004, and was modelled on the design used in the royal coat of arms of the Kingdom of Serbia which was abolished at the end of WWI in 1918.
The reverse side of the coin has a depiction of the Gracanica Monastery next to the value of the coin itself. The monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery located in Kosovo. It was built by the Serbian king Stefan Milutin in 1321 on the ruins of a much older 6th century Christian basilica. Over it’s life, the monastery has been heavily damaged by foreign powers in the region. For much of the medieval period it was due to invading Ottoman forces, with the final act happening during the Ottoman retreat after the second siege of Vienna in 1683.
During WWII, the monastery was partially destroyed, and the building was restored by local nuns. It has been serving as a convent ever since. Finally, the monastery received bomb damage during the Kosovo War (1998-99) by NATO forces, and has again been renewed and restored.
In 2006 the monastery was placed on UNESCO’s world heritage list.
Numismatic Exploits 