Pop music icon Gott to appear on gold, silver medals
Baku, November 1 (AZERTAC). The Czech Mint will issue gold and silver medals with a portrait of legendary pop music singer Karel Gott in November on the occasion of his 75th birthday to be celebrated in 2014, Mint spokeswoman Jana Kratochvilova said Wednesday.
The most valuable is a one-ounce gold medal that will be issued only in 250 copies.
The medals were designed by the mint`s artists Jaroslav Bejvl and Petr Horak. Each of them created one side.
Gott's portrait will be on the obverse side, while the reverse side will feature a lyre, laurel and a nightingale.
"It is a great honour to every artist to work on a commemorative medal for such a personality as Karel Gott. The lyre in my design symbolises music, laurel is the symbol of greatness and the singing nightingale refers to his well-known successes in the (Golden Nightingale) poll for the most popular singer of Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic," Horak said.
Although Gott turns 75 in July 2014 only, the mint will coin the medals in November.
A one-ounce gold medal (31.1 grammes) will cost 55,000 crowns, a half-ounce one 27,500 crowns. A one-ounce silver medal will be sold for 2000 crowns only.
Gott will arrive in Jablonec to christen the medal.
Gott, 74, winner of 37 Golden or Czech Nightingale awards, has kept at the top of domestic pop music for almost half a century.
He has issued some 150 long-playing albums. He is popular not only at home, but also abroad, mainly in Germany and Russia.
Previous Czech president Vaclav Klaus decorated Gott with a state award for contribution to Czech culture in 2009.
Gott has two adult daughters by his former girl-friends. In January 2008 he married Ivana Machackova in Las Vegas. They have two daughters, born in 2006 and 2008.
Other news in this section
