Brown Bear Bullion

The Spanish Royal Mint’s popular gold bullion series celebrating the nation’s wildlife has released its 2025 issue, which depicts the Cantabrian (or Iberian) brown bear. The program was launched in 2021. Previous issues feature the Iberian lynx, Spanish fighting bull, Carthusian horse, and imperial eagle. 

The reverse of this year’s coin showcases the bear strolling along a grassy patch of land. The inscription OSO PARDO (“brown bear”) appears along the rim, along with the denomination (1,5 EURO). The piece’s obverse mimics the design of a historic Spanish Milled dollar—a crest consisting of two hemispheres under a royal crown is flanked by the Pillars of Hercules with wavy waters below. Above the motif is a quadruple-latent-image security feature that, when tilted under the light, shows four images: the mintmark, a star, the euro symbol, and a silhouette of a columnar. 

The 37.2mm coin is struck in a reverse proof finish, and its mintage is limited to 10,000. To order, visit the Spanish Royal Mint’s website.

About the Cantabrian Brown Bear

The Cantabrian brown bear is a species of Eurasian brown bear that lives in the Cantabrian Mountains of Spain. By the 1800s, the Cantabrian brown bear was nearly eradicated from the Iberian Peninsula because it was hunted extensively for centuries. Today, most of the bears live in the rugged Cantabrian Mountains, where they found solace from hunters. Slightly smaller than North American grizzly bears, male Cantabrian brown bears weigh up to 450 pounds and usually live 25 to 30 years. Conservation efforts have increased their population numbers, but the Cantabrian brown bear is still considered critically endangered.

A version of this article appears in the September 2025 issue of The Numismatist (money.org).