Royal Mint marks 2015 Remembrance Day with £5 coin from Alderney
- Published: Oct 6, 2015, 11 AM
Press release from the Royal Mint
Since 2012 the Royal Mint has struck a special Remembrance Day Alderney £5 coin featuring the poppy — a widely recognized symbol of remembrance — to honor servicemen and women who have lost their lives in times of war.
The 2015 design is available as a Brilliant Uncirculated copper-nickel £5, a Proof .925 fine silver £5 or a Proof .925 fine silver piedfort (double-thick) £5.
The Royal Mint’s Remembrance Day coin for 2015 bears a poignant composition by Royal Mint Engraver Glyn Davies, who, taking transience as his theme, was inspired not only by personal loss but also the concept of the transformation of Flanders Fields, the inspiration for the poem that made poppies the symbol of World War I.
Creating the design was a moving task, as Davies explains: “When I considered what remembrance meant to me, I felt it was about putting myself in the position of someone who has experienced grief. Not everyone will have lost someone through conflict, but we can understand the feeling of losing a loved one. My mother died just over five years ago so I could relate to the subject of loss. I was also able to use photographs of the poppy fields that surrounded my parents’ house for reference. I wanted to create a narrative and sense of transience.
“Taking my inspiration from Flanders Fields, the design shows how the landscape would eventually be transformed by the turmoil, in contrast to the fields of poppies that subsequently grew as a direct result of the war’s destruction.”
Available in Silver Proof, Silver Proof Piedfort and Brilliant Uncirculated finishes, the coin has been color-printed using a ‘trichromatic’ printing process that layers color onto the coin to capture every detail of the vibrant red coloring of the poppy.
The obverse features the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Ian Rank-Broadley .
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Glyn Davies: the design and its designer
An engraver at The Royal Mint since 2012, Davies already has a medal for the Zoological Society and the Portrait of Britain Collection to his name. His most recent work is a design for the coin commemorating 600 years since the Battle of Agincourt. Davies worked as an animator before gaining a Masters Degree in Post Production at Bournemouth University. He subsequently worked as a set designer, video editor and motion graphic designer before joining the Royal Mint.
The coin is accompanied by ex-serviceman Anthony Devanny’s poem We Who Remain.
Anthony Devanny – author of the poem We Who Remain
Devanny first enlisted into his local Infantry Battalion, The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, which is now part of the Yorkshire Regiment.
Over his 23 years in the British Army, Devanny served in many operations, including Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Iraq and three tours of Afghanistan; he received the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service for work in Iraq. His poem reminds us that remembrance, conflict and its impact goes on.
“Having We Who Remain chosen by the Royal Mint to accompany the 2015 Remembrance Coin is extremely humbling. I hope the poem is well received by those who come across it and that they all understand what I was thinking and feeling at that time and every day since.”
We Who Remain
We are indeed the lucky and unlucky ones,
As we are the ones who have lived to tell the tales of those we once knew.
We are the ones who carry those scars of things seen, done and lost.
We are the ones who must never let those who are not here be forgotten by the new.
We are the ones who will never need to be reminded that, “We will remember them,”
As we are the ones who will always remember those we forever call friend.
Endorsed by Imperial War Museums, every coin purchased includes a donation to help support their work in encouraging the study and understanding of the history of modern war, according to the Royal Mint.
All of the coins measure 38.61 millimeters in diameter.
The BU coin and the standard silver Proof £5 coins each weigh 28.28 grams, and the Piedfort version weighs 56.56 grams.
The BU £5 coin has an unlimited mintage and retails for £13.
The standard silver Proof £5 coin has a mintage limint of 3,000 pieces and retails for £80.
The Piedfort silver £5 coin has a mintage limit of 1,500 pieces and retails for £160.
To order, visit the Royal Mint website.
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