Coins - Journey to Wedto the heart of the earth
This gorgeous 3-ounce silver coin delves into Jules Verne's novel "Journey to the Center of the Earth". Professor Lidenbrock's feverish ambition pulls Axel through dark veins of fear and wonder. The ancient surface evokes the dust of ancient caves. Ultra-high relief rises like jagged rocks. Selective gilding shines like a spark of discovery. The coin is housed in a case with a certificate of authenticity. There are only 250 pieces in the world.
The reverse side of the coin
The back of the coin depicts much of the action through a scene that summarizes the many situations the protagonists experienced: climbing large rocks, escaping from all kinds of giant animals that tried to eat them, crawling through caves, crossing fields of giant mushrooms, watching battles between large dinosaurs, using a wooden raft... A coin full of detail, struck in ultra-high relief and with a beautiful antique surface that allows you to observe every detail, with the title of the novel gilded in the lower left corner.
The front of the coin
The obverse depicts the moment when Professor Lidenbrock fantasizes about the adventure of a lifetime, a journey to the center of the Earth, and tells his nephew about it in a spectacular mineralogical hall, where giant sponges, dinosaurs, rocks, seas, caves and a great erupting volcano that destroys everything are all present. It also lists the denomination, country, year of issue, weight, metal and its purity. This side of the coin is full of detail and also has an antique finish that allows you to admire every millimeter of its surface, including lava and volcanic eruptions in full color.
Novel - Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Voyage to the Centre of the Earth (Voyage au centre de la Terre, 1864) is one of Jules Verne's most famous works, combining 19th century science with pure adventure. The story begins in Hamburg in 1863, when mineralogist Professor Otto Lidenbrock (in the original Otto Lidenbrock, sometimes translated as von Lidenbrock) discovers a coded scroll inside a copy of Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringl. The message, written in runes by the 16th-century Icelandic alchemist Arne Saknussemm, shows a path leading to the centre of the Earth via Sneffels Crater, an extinct volcano in Iceland.
Lidenbrock, accompanied by his nephew Axel (the novel's narrator) and Icelandic guide Hans Bjelk, travels to Reykjavik and then to Sneffels. On 28 June, they descend into the Scartaris crater, beginning an underground expedition that passes through geological passages, layers of basalt, granite and limestone, reaching a depth that Verne estimates to be more than 140 km below the Earth's crust (according to Lidenbrock's fictional calculations, which are scientifically inaccurate).
During their journey, they discover an underground sea approximately 80 km wide, named the Lidenbrock Sea, where they sail on an improvised raft called the Virgil. Along its shores, they find giant fossil remains, forests of colossal fungi and prehistoric creatures such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, reflecting 19th-century paleontological theories. They even encounter primitive man living alongside mammoths, in a scene that mixes scientific speculation with fantasy.
