Anton Hám

Life and work

He was born on 20 April 1899 in Kremnica into the family of a mint employee. As the eldest of many siblings he had to leave the Kremnica secondary school, and on 1 July 1914 he joined the mint's engraving department. From 1916 to 1919 he studied at the School of Applied Arts in Budapest and from 1922 to 1925 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in Otakar Španiel's special school. From 1925 he headed the engraving workshop of the Kremnica Mint; sources differ on the date of his departure (both 1955 and 1959 are given). Besides his artistic work he assessed counterfeit coins and was involved in the development of minting technology. He died on 23 November 1965 in Kremnica.

Coins and medals

Hám co-designed circulation and commemorative coins of the Slovak Republic of 1939–1944, among them the silver 20-koruna piece of 1939, and in 1949 he contributed to Polish coins of 20 and 50 groszy and 1 złoty. Documented medals include pieces for the Kremnica Mint (1925), the Lower Gate in Kremnica (1930) and the medal for the revival of Kremnica mining of 1934, which the mint restruck in silver in 2016.

From the work in the AUREA range

The AUREA range includes a restrike of the ducat medal for the revival of Kremnica mining (1934) in gilt base metal, 25 mm in diameter. A plaquette of 1908 for the Jubilee Exhibition of the Prague Chamber of Commerce and Trade district is also catalogued under his name; given Hám's year of birth this attribution is chronologically impossible, and the authorship of the plaquette remains unverified.