Swissmint knew their decision to release a coin in tribute to Roger Federer would be highly popular, but they didn’t expect it to cause their own website to break down.
The 20-time grand slam has had a 20 franc silver piece bearing his image made in his honour. Making Federer the first living person in history to have a Swiss coin minted in tribute to him. Up to 95,000 silver coins has been made with a price of 30 Swiss francs ($30.09) each. Meanwhile, next year 40,000 50 franc gold coins with a different design will be released.
“In addition to his sporting brilliance, Roger Federer is above all the perfect ambassador for Switzerland,” Swissmint said in a statement on its website. “He has a unique way of embodying likeability, down-to-earthness, success and eloquence.”
In the immediate aftermath of the announcement, fans flocked to the Swissmint website in a bid to pre-order their commemorative coins before they ran out. However, the demand proved too much and eventually resulted in the website crashing. Leaving many eagerly waiting to get hold of theirs.
“We had 2.5 million clicks. It was too much for the shop to handle,” Swissmint CEO Marius Haldimann told Reuters.
“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.”
To the relief of both Federer fans and Swissmint the website is back up running and taking orders. The coin will officially be issued on January 23rd next year and will be sold until either the start of 2023 or when they are all sold out.
“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,” Mr. Haldimann said.
“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.”
The 38-year-old has achieved numerous records throughout his career. Including winning more grand slam singles titles than any other male tennis player and spending 310 weeks as world No.1. Overall, he has 103 titles and 1237 wins so far in his career. The second highest in the Open Era after Jimmy Connors.
Federer has ended 2019 rankled 3rd in the world.
