Monday March 1st: The Royal Mint has today launched a commemorative coin collection in honour of Her Majesty’s birthday, including its largest ever gold proof coin weighing 9.5kg. The Queen, who will reach the age of 95 on April 21, will have her birthday marked by The Royal Mint, who have struck a range of coins, featuring two new designs, for the occasion.

A limited number of Celebration Sovereigns struck on 21 April 2021, the date of Her Majesty’s 95th birthday, will also mark the occasion. Just 1,295 Celebration Sovereigns will be struck on this date, and will feature the exclusive ‘95’ crown privy mark created for this historic occasion.

The 9.5 kilo gold proof coin features a design by Gary Breeze, which has platinum-plated flourishes spread across the entire face of the gold coin holding the elements together. The flourish has a characteristic place within traditional design and fits within the idiom of heraldic imagery, fine craftsmanship and letterform.

His richly symbolic ‘flourish’ design represents The Queen’s nine decades with nine roses, while 54 leaves signify the countries of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is of particular importance and pride to the Queen, and its successful continued fellowship is perhaps one of her greatest achievements.

The other coins in the collection featuring this design include a one-kilo gold coin, a five-ounce gold proof coin, a one-kilo silver proof coin, and a five-ounce silver proof coin.

The second design, included in the 2021 Annual set, is designed by heraldic artist Timothy Noad and shows the Royal Cypher set against a background of the national flowers: rose, thistle, shamrock and daffodil.

In both designs the coins bear the inscription ‘My Heart and My Devotion’, referencing a promise The Queen made in her 1957 Christmas speech and has kept ever since.

In celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s remarkable milestone, The Royal Mint will be gifting a celebratory coin to 95 individuals turning 95 year’s old this year. Drawn at random, the winning nominations will receive a brilliant uncirculated £5 commemorative coin featuring Timothy Noad’s exquisite design.

Five different effigies of the Queen have been created by The Royal Mint documenting her reign, with her face featured on every British coin in circulation.

For more information, and to see the collection, please visit The Royal Mint’s website.

(Pelham, Alabama) — A new metal-detecting and coin-collecting column by award-winning author Frank J. Colletti will debut on Monday, March 1, 2021. The column, “Hidden Treasures,” will appear in Coin Update (www.coinupdate.com) every other week.

Frank Colletti, a Certified Public Accountant, is known to the numismatic community as a specialist and collector of the Guide Book of United States Coins, popularly known as the “Red Book.” He wrote the Guide Book of the Official Red Book of United States Coins (Whitman Publishing, 2009), a reference for book collectors, which Kenneth Bressett has called “a fascinating account with a wealth of information.” Colletti follows the market for rare and special-edition Red Books and regularly advises on pricing and rarity.

The longtime collector became interested in coins in 1962, when he received a Barber quarter (last minted in 1916) in payment on his newspaper-delivery route. His interest in metal-detecting is also longstanding, and he has written hundreds of related articles in various hobby publications, including Lost Treasure magazine. He wrote monthly columns on coin collecting (“Money Talks”) and on the good deeds that metal detectorists perform (“Civic Patrol”).

“The hobbies of treasure-hunting and coin-collecting are richly connected,” says Colletti. “Metal detectorists often locate scarce and unusual coins, and we should be knowledgeable about our finds. As you learn more about coins, you become better equipped to form a nice collection, rather than just a random accumulation. And if you’re already an active coin collector, you can enter an exciting new world by learning the ins and outs of hands-on treasure hunting.”

Whitman publisher Dennis Tucker has seen growing interest in metal-detecting over the past year. “We published the second edition of Dave Bowers’s Lost and Found Coin Hoards and Treasures in the winter of 2019,” Tucker says. “The book was featured in social media and got coverage from the American Numismatic Association and the hobby publications. Then it started to gain more attention from metal detectorists. In five weeks I received nearly 400 Facebook friend requests from treasure-hunters who were interested in the book. There are active communities online, where detectorists share information and inspire each other to keep looking for the next big treasure.”

Colletti joins a regular lineup of Coin Update columnists including Q. David Bowers, Michael Alexander, Louis Golino, and Michael Bugeja. News articles, market commentary, Mint reports, and opinion pieces on U.S. and world coins, medals, tokens, and paper money are published daily at www.coinupdate.com.

The Royal Mint, the Original Maker of UK coins, in collaboration with the Natural History Museum has today launched a new commemorative coin collection celebrating fossil hunter and pioneering palaeontologist Mary Anning.

This is the second coin collection in The Royal Mint’s ‘Tales of the Earth’ series celebrating the awe-inspiring ancient creatures discovered here in Britain. The next coin collection shines a light on one of Britain’s greatest fossil hunters – Mary Anning. The first release in the Mary Anning Collection features Temnodontosaurus, one of the largest types of ichthyosaur and an apex predator that once roamed the ocean that covered much of southern Britain. Other coins in the collection will Anning’s discoveries of Plesiosaurus and Dimorphodon.

Renowned British paleo-artist and designer of the first Tales of the Earth commemorative coin collection, Robert Nicholls, has brought all three of Mary Anning’s discoveries back to life. Based on current understanding and the expert guidance of Sandra Chapman of the Earth Sciences Department at the Natural History Museum, each of the coin design’s created by Robert are a scientifically accurate reconstruction of the creatures and the environment that they existed in. By using the latest colour printing techniques, the intricate characteristics of each of the prehistoric marine reptiles have been captured to illustrate accurately how these creatures looked like on Earth millions of years ago, making them appear dynamic and adding a new level of visual fidelity to the coins.

Clare Maclennan, Divisional Director of Commemorative Coin at The Royal Mint said, “It is an absolute pleasure to continue the popular Tales of the Earth commemorative 50p coin series in conjunction with the Natural History Museum. The next collection in the series celebrates fossil hunter and pioneering palaeontologist Mary Anning, with three coin’s featuring Anning’s astonishing discoveries of Temnodontosaurus, Plesiosaurus and Dimorphodon.

In addition to each of the coin designs being a scientifically accurate reconstruction of the creatures and the environment they lived in, we have combined augmented reality technology with the coins to bring the animals to life through animation and allow people to explore the details of the prehistoric marine reptiles from the comfort of their home.”

Clare Matterson, Executive Director of Engagement at the Natural History Museum said: “We are thrilled to continue working with The Royal Mint on the Tales of the Earth series. The Mary Anning Collection celebrates a pivotal figure in the understanding of palaeontology, important contributions to science that were rarely acknowledged in Mary’s lifetime. It is fantastic to see Mary celebrated in such a special way in 2021.”

Mary Anning was born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, in 1799 and spent her entire life in this small seaside town on England’s south coast. Anning’s father Richard had a large family to support and, in order to supplement his modest income as a carpenter, he set up a curiosity table outside their home selling fossils to tourists. It was at this point that she developed an interest in helping her father and amongst the curiosities they discovered were ‘snake stones’ (ammonites), ‘devil fingers’ (belemites) and ‘verteberries’ (vertebrae). Aged only 12 or 13, Anning made her first discovery, an articulated skeleton of an ichthyosaur, a type of marine reptile that once roamed Jurassic seas. From this point forward Anning made a number of astonishing discoveries making her the greatest fossil hunter of the Victorian era.

Designed in conjunction with experts at the Natural History Museum, the augmented reality brings the mighty beasts to life from the comfort of home. To access the augmented reality feature, customers will need to visit The Royal Mint website to unearth exclusive content.

The first coin in the series features Temnodontosaurus and is available in gold and colour and non-colour silver proof editions, as well as a brilliant uncirculated finish and a special colour printed brilliant uncirculated edition, exclusively available from The Royal Mint. Visit www.royalmint.com/MaryAnning to view the full commemorative coin range.