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 A stunning new series of silver coins minted for the Cook Islands pays tribute to famous Cathedrals throughout the world. Beautifully designed, featuring stained glass windows, the series bears the title “The Windows of Heaven”.

The obverse of the coin represents an effigy of Elizabeth II as well as the inscription of the Queen’s name. There is a full-colour window ins ert next to the portrait. The obverse also contains the legends indicating the face value of the coin and the name of the issuing country.

The reverse design features the image of the magnificent Basilica Sacre Coeur Paris, with a plan of the outlay of the cathedral below. Being a powerful testimony to the strength and persistence of Christian belief in medieval and modern Europe, the temple has an exceptional intrinsic val ue and contains artistic masterpieces, one of them reflected in a full-colour window insert on the reverse of this silver coin. The upper part of the coin contains the legend denoting the name of the series. Below the images, there are the inscriptions of the name of the city and the year of mintage.

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•     Contains  50 grams of .925 Silver.

•     Coin is decorated with real stained glass

•     Each coin comes in a special box with a COA.

•     Strict limited mintage of only 2000 coins.

•     Obverse: Effigy of Queen Elizabeth II, “Cook Islands”, and the legal tender value of 10 Dollars

•     Reverse: A very high quality rendition of Basilica Sacre Coeur Paris
  

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 In the series of Windows of Heaven you can find:

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  2010 Windows of Heaven – Cologne

  2011 Windows of Heaven – Notre Dame de Paris

  2011 Windows of Heaven – Sevilla

  2011 Windows of Heaven – Westminster Abbey London

  2011 Windows of History – Titanic

  2012 Windows of Heaven – Bethlehem

  2012 Windows of Heaven – Cracow St Francis

  2012 Windows of Heaven – St Isaac Cathedral

  2013 Windows of Heaven – Chartres

  2013 Windows of Heaven – Lourdes

  2013 Windows of Heaven – Milan Cathedral

  2013 Windows of History – Grand Central Terminal

  2014 Windows of Heaven – Buenos Aires

  2014 Windows of Heaven – Sacre Coeur

  2014 Windows of Heaven – Sacre Coeur

  2014 Windows of Heaven – Washington National Cathedral – Special Editon

  2014 Windows of Heaven Giants – Cologne Cathedral – Special Edition

  2015 Windows of Heaven – Zagreb Cathedral

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  History:

The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, commonly known as Sacré-Cœur Basilica and often simply Sacré-Cœur (French: Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, pronounced [sakʁe kœʁ]), is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Paris, France. A popular landmark, the basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city. Sacré-Cœur is a double monument, political and cultural, both a national penance for the defeat of France in the 1871 Franco-Prussian War and the socialist Paris Commune of 1871 crowning its most rebellious neighborhood, and an embodiment of conservative moral order, publicly dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was an increasingly popular vision of a loving and sympathetic Christ.

The Sacré-Cœur Basilica was designed by Paul Abadie. Construction began in 1875 and was finished in 1914. It was consecrated after the end of World War I in 1919.

The inspiration for Sacré Cœur’s design originated on September 4, 1870, the day of the proclamation of the Third Republic, with a speech by Bishop Fournier attributing the defeat of French troops during the Franco-Prussian War to a divine punishment after “a century of moral decline” since the French Revolution, in the wake of the division in French society that arose in the decades following that revolution, between devout Catholics and legitimist royalists on one side, and democrats, secularists, socialists and radicals on the other. This schism in the French social order became particularly pronounced after the 1870 withdrawal of the French military garrison protecting the Vatican in Rome to the front of the Franco-Prussian War by Napoleon III, the secular uprising of the Paris Commune of 1870-1871, and the subsequent 1871 defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War.

Basilica Sacre Coeur Paris