Britannia rules on silver £50 coin
- Published: Dec 4, 2015, 5 AM
The Royal Mint is expanding its series of silver coins available at face value, with a new denomination.
The mint on Nov. 30 announced the first “£50 for £50” coin, which pairs two iconic figures by one designer. The £50 coin features Jody Clark’s image of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse, and his contemporary figure of Britannia with a British lion at her side is depicted on the reverse.
Clark’s design for the fifth effigy of the queen first appeared on United Kingdom coinage earlier this year.
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The first coin in the Royal Mint’s face value range, the £20 for £20 coin for the birth of Prince George of Cambridge in 2013, sold out within days, and the £100 for £100 Big Ben coin was another sellout in December 2014. Also part of the program are a £20 coin honoring Sir Winston Churchill, a £20 coin marking the queen’s tenure as the longest reigning British monarch, and a £100 coin showing Buckingham Palace.
Clark used multiple images as resources when creating his effigy of the queen.
“The queen hasn’t aged that much since Ian Rank-Broadley created the last effigy, so I made some key changes that would make the new portrait stand out in its own right. The regalia I chose was key; I included the crown that her majesty wore at her coronation,” he said, via a press release.
Clark’s Britannia design is a contemporary take on the classic symbol of Britain, reuniting Britannia with the British lion, a pairing from plaques commemorating the soldiers of World War I.
The Brilliant Uncirculated .999 fine silver £50 coin weighs 31 grams and measures 34 millimeters in diameter. It has a mintage limit of 100,000 pieces and comes attached to a colorful card.
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