The day after Rio 2016 celebrated one year to the Olympic Games there was a special treat for collectors of Olympic and Paralympic memorabilia. New batches of commemorative Rio 2016 coins and stamps were unveiled on Thursday (6 August) during a special launch event at the Maracanã Stadium.

The latest circulation coins, worth R$1 (one Brazilian real), introduced three more Olympic sports to the collection – volleyball, judo and football – and one more Paralympic sport – athletics (check out the complete collection here).
 

Up to 2016, 16 common circulation coin designs will be released

There are also gold and silver coins, which are special collectors’ items, bearing exclusive designs. Each of them combines an outdoor sport being practised in front of a famous Rio landmark – rowing on Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, running in Flamengo Park, cycling at Vista Chinesa, and playing beach volleyball at Copacabana – with a Brazilian cultural icon (one for fauna, flora, architecture and music) on their opposite side – a mico-leão dourado (a type of Brazilian monkey), an orchid; the Sambódromo, and forró (a musical and dance style from Northeast of Brazil).

The gold coin will feature Christ the Redeemer on one side and Olympic wrestling on the other.
 

Designed for collectors, silver and golden coins celebrate customs and landscapes of Brazil

Over 320 million coins will be produced in 36 different models – four gold, 16 silver and 16 for common circulation. The fourth and final batch of coins will be released in February 2016.

Another popular collector’s item are the Rio 2016 commemorative postal stamps, which were launched on the 500 days to the Olympic Games milestone. The new collection, released today, will display nine Olympic sports – boxing, canoe, fencing, football, golf, handball, taekwondo, table tennis and triathlon – as well as one Paralympic sport – judo.

A printed sheet contains two stamps for each of the 10 Olympic and Paralympic sports 

There will be 31 different designs in total, reflecting the fact that Rio 2016 will be the Games of the XXXI Olympiad. The last batch will be launched in November, featuring 11 different stamps. They can be purchased in Brazilian post offices or through the Correios (Brazilian post office) virtual store (in Brazil only) and are sold for R$1.30 each and R$26 for the full set.