androl wrote:2, 6, 9: why do they want these geometrical patterns? what should they be good for? When I see an Estonian coin I want to think of Estonia. These patterns could be on coins from just any country.
But after seeing the big images, I like #6 with the birds a bit.
As you already noticed, the patterns in #2 and #6 consist of birds, more precisely swallows (Hirundinidae). I'm not sure but it might be the national bird of Estonia, like the swan in Finland's. The swan often symbolizes Finland in various contexts (e.g. 1€ coin), and the swallow seems to be the same for Estonia. Look at their
present EEK 500 note (btw, that swallow on the newest, year 2000 note consists
totally of microscopic 'EEK500' texts!)
And what's more, #2's name is Linnutee, which means The Milky Way but is literally The Bird's Way. Note the European stars
among the swallows on the 1-50c coins! I think the idea is quite nice, since according to research birds do orientate by stars (as well as landmarks, magnetism etc.).
The Milky Way is similar in Finnish, Linnunrata, literally The Bird's Track/Path/Course.
androl wrote:7: a bit too strange, and what does the EW stand for?
EW stands for Eesti Wabariik, which means Estonian Republic, literally Estonian Free Country. Riik is actually about the same as German 'Reich', Dutch 'rijk' (am I correct?), Swedish 'rike' etc. meaning country, state, kingdom, realm, regime etc.
I hope some of them will win!
