Official designs for the Bulgarian Euro coins released

After many delays  Bulgaria is set to join the Eurozone on 1st January 2026 . On 9th April 2025 BNB released the official designs for the upcoming Bulgarian Euro coins .They feature the Madara Horseman , St.Ivan of Rila and Saint Paisius of Hilendar and copy the currently circulating Bulgarian coinage .The edge of the 2 euro will be inscribed with the phrase БОЖЕ ПАЗИ БЪЛГАРИЯ /GOD SAVE BULGARIA , a nod to coins from the period of the Tsardom of Bulgaria .

Press release here- https://bnb.bg/AboutUs/PressOffice/POPressReleases/POPRDate/PR_20250409_BG

And here are the designs- 

What are your thoughts?

Personally I don't find euro coins that interesting design wise in general, but it is nice to see that the 1 euro coin will still look like the 1 Lev coin which I do like the design of. Not bad designs for all of them i'd say, good work Bulgaria :)

I think it would be nice if every denomination had its own design, but 1€ and 2€ look really good. I'm actually quite curious about commemorative 2€ coins in the future, Bulgaria had some nice designs of circulating commemoratives both during socialism and after it.

Deda Lebeda

I think it would be nice if every denomination had its own design, but 1€ and 2€ look really good. I'm actually quite curious about commemorative 2€ coins in the future, Bulgaria had some nice designs of circulating commemoratives both during socialism and after it.

Knowing how many commemorative circulating coins have been issued since the introduction of the current lev  in 1999 , I would not really hold my breath .( For those not in the know the answer is 4 - 3x50 stotinki ( NATO 2004 , Associate member of EU 2005 and EU 2007 ) and 1x 2 leva ( BG EU presidency 2018 ) .

That being said , there are some very important anniversaries coming up in the next few years , mainly 2026 -150 years since the April Uprising , 2028- 150 years since Liberation , 2029 -150 since the first constitution ( The Tarnovo constitution ) , and it will be nice to see  some circulating coins issued to commemorate those events , plus there are other things like UNESCO wolrd heritage sites and nature reserves that can be commemorated , but as said , I won't hold breath waiting for them to come out since BNB doesn't really have the  habit of releasing circulating commemorative coins . We will have to wait and see .

Alrumon

Deda Lebeda

I think it would be nice if every denomination had its own design, but 1€ and 2€ look really good. I'm actually quite curious about commemorative 2€ coins in the future, Bulgaria had some nice designs of circulating commemoratives both during socialism and after it.

Knowing how many commemorative circulating coins have been issued since the introduction of the current lev  in 1999 , I would not really hold my breath .( For those not in the know the answer is 4 - 3x50 stotinki ( NATO 2004 , Associate member of EU 2005 and EU 2007 ) and 1x 2 leva ( BG EU presidency 2018 ) .

That being said , there are some very important anniversaries coming up in the next few years , mainly 2026 -150 years since the April Uprising , 2028- 150 years since Liberation , 2029 -150 since the first constitution ( The Tarnovo constitution ) , and it will be nice to see  some circulating coins issued to commemorate those events , plus there are other things like UNESCO wolrd heritage sites and nature reserves that can be commemorated , but as said , I won't hold breath waiting for them to come out since BNB doesn't really have the  habit of releasing circulating commemorative coins . We will have to wait and see .

Well, the attitude of the BNB to circulating commemorative coins may change after the introduction of the Euro. In Slovakia, for example, no circulating commemoratives had been issued when it used koruna (1993-2009), but since the introduction of the Euro, it has already issued 16 such coins.

But as you wrote, we will have to wait and see.

I think the ECB (that’s the European Central Bank not Bink) for those of you who saw my April fools post, actively encourages commemorative €2 coins - with an allowance of 2 per year per country with the mintage capped relating to population or GDP (not sure which), this is done for many reasons; to allow worn €2 to be removed from the euro area without putting pressure on any one country to mint more standard €2 coins, to actively stimulate the collectors market (this coincides with allowing countries to mint €5 and €10 coins which don’t circulate but are legal currency), and finally to promote the country’s cultural heritage as the design on the notes must be neutral (standard across the EU) and the normal coin designs are limited and constrained in their design changes.

I personally like the fact that some countries don’t go OTT with commemoratives, so the fact that Bulgaria didn’t mint that many is good, these coins should maintain or slowly increase in value (plus they actually commemorate something), unlike the countries that produce endless commemoratives just for the sake of it! UK, USA, Germany off the top of my head but luckily Germany is now capped at 2x€2 coins per year - although they manage to multiple the collectors market by 5 as they have 5 mints with different letter marks. Pointless!

King

I think the ECB (that’s the European Central Bank not Bink) for those of you who saw my April fools post, actively encourages commemorative €2 coins - with an allowance of 2 per year per country with the mintage capped relating to population or GDP (not sure which), this is done for many reasons; to allow worn €2 to be removed from the euro area without putting pressure on any one country to mint more standard €2 coins, to actively stimulate the collectors market (this coincides with allowing countries to mint €5 and €10 coins which don’t circulate but are legal currency), and finally to promote the country’s cultural heritage as the design on the notes must be neutral (standard across the EU) and the normal coin designs are limited and constrained in their design changes.

 

I personally like the fact that some countries don’t go OTT with commemoratives, so the fact that Bulgaria didn’t mint that many is good, these coins should maintain or slowly increase in value (plus they actually commemorate something), unlike the countries that produce endless commemoratives just for the sake of it! UK, USA, Germany off the top of my head but luckily Germany is now capped at 2x€2 coins per year - although they manage to multiple the collectors market by 5 as they have 5 mints with different letter marks. Pointless!

I agree that some countries really issue far too many commemorative coins. On the other hand, some  other countries (including Czech Republic) only issue a very few circulating commemoratives and these can't be found in circulation. This attitude doesn't make too much sense either, as such coins should really enter everyday circulation in my opinion.
 

I like to choose if I want to look for commemorative coins in circulation or if I want to buy them for a premium and it seems to me that many mints and central banks not only in the eurozone push the collectors to the second option (by minting only a few types and by limiting their mintage because of the higher profit). That's why I hope that Bulgaria would mint sufficient number of  its future commemorative coins so they could really enter circulation.