ROYAL MINT TO ISSUE COIN FOR QUEEN'S DIAMOND JUBILEE

It is revealed that later this year the Royal Mint will be releasing a very special new UK £5 coin to mark the occasion of Her Majesty the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

This 2012 UK £5 is the official Diamond Jubilee celebration coin, and has now been approved by the Queen and passed by the Privy Council into law as a UK coin.

In 2012 the Queen will become only the second monarch in British history to have achieved 60 years on the throne – the previous and only other time this has happened before was the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen's great-great grandmother Queen Victoria celebrated in 1897.

The final design will be revealed in October 2011, but it was revealed that the obverse will feature a new portrait by Ian Rank Broadley FRBS, the first new portrait of the Queen to appear on a UK coin since 2007, inspired by the sculpture by Mr Rank-Broadley mounted in the entrance to the Supreme Court building on Parliament Square (see image 1)

The reverse will feature an adaptation of the Mary Gillick effigy first used on United Kingdom coins from 1953, by Mr Rank-Broadley and featuring an olive branch and ribbon below. This portrait links the image cleverly back to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee medal struck by the Royal Mint and also to the ‘Una and the lion' coin which was the first coin to depict Queen Victoria and featured a Latin inscription translated as ‘May God direct my steps' (see image 2)

Wayne Homren, Editor

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web