The Barbarian
In 1966, Lancer Books set out to resurrect Robert E. Howard's Conan character for the paperback age and handed the cover to Frank Frazetta. He returned "The Barbarian." Conan atop a mount of the slain, sword planted, maiden at his feet, and gave the character a face for the first time. Every Conan since, from comics to Schwarzenegger, has been painted, drawn, or cast in its shadow. The Lancer covers that followed ignited the sword & sorcery boom and now trade like old masters, including Metallica's Kirk Hammett's "Conan the Berserker" going to the block at $10M. For the first time, The Barbarian has been rendered on a 1,000mg 24-karat gold Aurum canvas.
MetalMark Artist Series bills come directly from MetalMark. Each is independently numbered and includes a Certificate of Authenticity.
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Licensing
Officially licensed with permission by Frazetta Girls LLC.
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Certified Gold
Each Frazetta bill is a real Aurum®, a certified gold product.
Officially Licensed
This collection is officially licensed from Frazetta Girls, LLC.
Verified Authentic
Each bill includes anti-counterfeiting measures and is double-sided.
“Knowing what to take out and what to leave in is what separates the men from the boys.”
Frank Frazetta
The definitive Conan.
Immortalized in gold.
Publishers learned quickly what a Frazetta cover was worth: Lancer’s Conan paperbacks sold in the millions, and readers admitted they bought them for the painting and got the stories as a bonus — authors began requesting “a Frazetta cover” the way bands would later request a producer. The Barbarian’s composition became a genre unto itself: the planted sword and the hill of the fallen have been homaged, borrowed, and outright stolen across half a century of metal albums, D&D art, and video game covers. When Hollywood finally filmed Conan in 1982, the production leaned on Frazetta’s imagery to know what the movie should feel like. Through the 70s, the image moved from bookstore racks to dorm-room walls as the poster boom made Frazetta the most pinned-up painter in America. Countless imitators have painted a barbarian on a pile of foes since. The reason it’s familiar is that everyone learned it here.
The Barbarian has now been rendered on 24-karat gold. Double serialization, individually numbered, with no second run.
Savage front to back.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an accurate and faithful reproduction, MetalMark artists spend countless hours transferring over design elements from the original work and adapting them for minting with gold.
Front
Back
Certified authentic.
Each Aurum is double serialized, with one unique serial number on the bill, and one on the certificate of authenticity, or COA. Each COA is sequentially numbered, so you'll know which you got off the production line of our mint.
The serials on every COA are protected by FIPS-compliant holographic, tamper-evident seals. The Aurum bills have the same embedded anti-counterfeiting tech found in the Swiss franc. In short, there's never been a more protected gold collectible or art print.
Real, beautiful gold
Protected by dual layers of flexible polymer, the gold canvas is safe from scratches and exposure to the elements. Like new forever.
True scarcity
Our collaborations feature big names and small lots. We only mint a small number of first editions, and once they’re gone, that’s it.
Dual-value asset
Fine art has a market (including prints), and gold has a market. Fine art made with gold has appreciation potential across both.
About the Artist
Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta, born in 1928 in Brooklyn, NY, emerged as one of the most influential illustrators of the 20th century. He launched his remarkable career at just 16, illustrating for comics such as Buck Rogers, before earning global acclaim for his evocative science fiction & fantasy pulp covers, including the iconic Conan the Barbarian and Thongor. Known as the “King of Illustration,” Frazetta’s work defined an era of fantasy art, leaving a legacy that continues to inspire millions of creators across generations.
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