Tag: Crown

Happy Victoria Day!

Queen Victoria - Gothic Crown

Victoria Day (in French: Fête de la Reine) is a federal Canadian public holiday celebrated on the last Monday preceding May 25, in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday. The Gothic Crown is considered by many to be the finest Victorian silver coin. Victoria Gothic Crown, mdcccxlvii = 1847, edge inscribed Undecimo, Spink 3883. Beautifully toned, EF with some minor marks to the bust and in the fields. Sold Victoria Gothic Crown £1,150.00 Thank you Leodis Hammered Coins for text and image.  

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The Commonwealth of England, 1653

In 1649 Pierre Blondeau, a master engineer at the Paris mint, came to the Tower Mint in London. He was invited by a mint beset by forgers and clippers of its hammered coins and willing to look at milled coinage afresh (Milling had been tried a 100 years before under Elizabeth I). Despite the invitation and his capable machinery Blondeau had a fierce struggle against the MInt and its supporters who, frightened by technology, attacked the innovative Blondeau in pamphlets and accusations of high treason. But he succeeded, in the end, as luck and the Lord Protector favoured him. Blondeau…

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The British Crown struck in New York, 1960

A Crown was struck to celebrate the British Exhibition in New York in 1960. The Royal Mint had a stand at the New York Exhibition on which they were demonstrating coins being struck. The coin was the 1960 crown (or Five Shilings) that had been designed for the occasion. The 70,000 coins actually made at the exhibition were made using a polished die at “prooflike” quality. At the end of the Exhibition all of the unsold ones were bagged up and sent back to Britain – this is why it’s difficult to obtain a pristine specimen without bagmarks. An Uncirculated Crown (with a lot of bagmarks) can…

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