Silver coin featuring Federer up for sale; site crashes

A silver coin, commemorating the feats of tennis legend Roger Federer, that was minted by Switzerland’s Swissmint, proved to be so popular that the official website crashed within seconds of the news being known to public. The mint, which is selling a single coin for 30 francs each (INR 2180) made 600,000 of the coins but had promised to mint 100,000 coins more if the demand was high.

The coin, worth 20 francs each, is the first by the federal mint to have a living person on it. It features the 38-year old Federer playing a backhand shot. The uncirculated quality of the coin was up for pre-order last week and will continue till December 19, or till the first minting, run is sold out. Those who miss out on buying this coin will have to wait till May next year when Swissmint plans to issue the Federer-themed coins in gold.

“We had 2.5 million clicks. It was too much for the shop to handle,” said Swissmint CEO Marius Haldimann, after the Mint’s website crashed due to excess demand.

“We expected and planned for high demand, but we never imagined it would be this big. When Roger posted a link on his social media channels the website immediately had problems due to all the traffic. Some fans could access the shop but could not finish the order. Others could not get onto the website.“

“We have had a lot of fans emailing us asking if they can buy the coin, but we can’t take credit card details via email,” said Mr. Haldimann. “We are just asking fans to be patient and keep trying the website. We are working hard to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.”

Roger Federer often called the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) in the tennis circuit, is a former world number 1 and a 20 time Grand Slam winner from Switzerland. He created a stupendous record of holding the numero uno spot for 237 consecutive weeks and has reached 30 men’s singles Grand Slams finals, including 10 consecutively from the 2005 Wimbledon to the 2007 US Open.