2005 Denmark 10Kr UNC Coin "Ugly Duckling"

• Mint: Royal Danish Mint
• Denomination: 10 Kroner
• Quality: Circulation
• Issue limit: 1.2 million pcs.
• Alloy: Base Metal
• Diameter: 23.35 mm
• Weight: 7 grams
• Reverse Design: Hans Pauli Olsen
• Obverse Design: Mogens Møller
• Box/Capsule: No/No
• Certificate: No

This issue marks the start of a 5-coin series celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of world-famous Danish fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen.

Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark on April 2 1805, the son of a poor shoemaker and a laundress. As a child, Hans Christian loved reading and visiting the theater as ways to escape the life of poverty he was born into. Leaving home at age 14 to seek his fortune at the theater in Copenhagen, he suffered many setbacks and almost died from hunger. With the help of the director of the Royal Danish Theater, Andersen was eventually admitted to university and started to write.

Using the colorful impressions and experiences of his childhood days in Odense, where old customs and superstitions had a different life than in the large city of Copenhagen, and basing his writing around the disturbing social experiences from the lowest ranks of society and his own urge to escape poverty, Andersen's first book of fairy tales was published in 1835. An immediate success, he followed it with a new fairy tale almost every year until 1872. Hans Christian Andersen's literary fame grew rapidly from the mid-1830's, when his work enjoyed widespread circulation in Germany, and in the mid-1840's the word had spread to the US and Great Britain. Childless and never married, H.C. Andersen died on August 4 1875 and is buried at Assistens cemetery in Copenhagen.

Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales almost always center around the premise of the differences between rich and poor, showing compassion for those who are outcast and suffering and making fun of the spoiled and conceited. His stories teach us that appearances can be deceiving, and that there is a magical beauty even within the most unlikely characters. Because of his wonderful talent for heart-wrenching stories, Hans Christian Andersen is one of the most beloved children's authors in the world. In his lifetime, he wrote 168 fairy tales, and his writing has been translated into more than 100 languages. His best-known works include Thumbelina, the Ugly Duckling, the Emperor's New Clothes, the Little Mermaid and the Little Matchstick Girl.

The reverse features an image of an adult swan studying its reflection in the lake at Bregentvedt Manor, where H.C. Andersen was inspired to write his famous fairy tale. The obverse features the portrait of Queen Margrethe II.