The late Queen Elizabeth II of Britain is being honored with a basketball-sized gold coin worth “approximately $23 million”. The coin is made of nearly 8 pounds of gold and some 6,426 diamonds. Could the new coin honoring the late queen’s life be “one of the most valuable coins of all time”?
According to news site ‘CNN’, the coin will be unveiled a few days before the first anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s death. The commemorative coin is not considered legal tender in the United Kingdom (although the coin denominations within the design are). It was produced by the East India Company, a luxury lifestyle brand with the rights to the name of the company that once controlled large parts of the British Empire.
The coin, which bears the name “The Crown,” is described in a company press release as an “objet d’art.” The coin is over 9.6 inches (24.38 centimeters) in diameter, making it wider than an NBA regulation basketball (a professional basketball league basketball in North America), and the design consists of nearly a dozen coins of 24 carat gold nestled in beds of diamonds.
The central coin weighs more than 2 pounds (about 1 kilogram), while the smaller coins around it each weigh 1 ounce (28.34 grams) and feature portraits of the deceased monarch or images of virtues such as truth, justice, and courage. On one side, thousands of diamonds are arranged to form the flag of the United Kingdom, while the back is inspired by the late Queen’s tiaras.
Coin approved before death
‘The Crown’ took more than a year to produce, meaning it was set in motion before Queen Elizabeth passed away at Balmoral Castle in Scotland last September. The coin designs were fully approved by the Government of the British Overseas Territory of St Helena and by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II before she passed away, in a process administered by the Royal Household and the Royal Ceremonial and Honorary Unit (RCHU). ) of the Ministry of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
In an interview with ‘CNN’ ahead of the unveiling, businessman Sanjiv Mehta, who acquired the rights from the East India Company in 2005, said no expense had been spared in honoring Queen Elizabeth, whom he described as “the queen of the earth”. .”
“An average diamond setter can set about four stones per hour,” said Mehta, whose family business is in the diamond industry. “So, if you look at (approximately) 6,500 bricks in one piece, that’s a huge number of hours of labor for one man. The tribute we pay to the Queen was not about cutting costs, but about celebrating a life,” he added.
Record most expensive coin?
The current Guinness World Record for the most expensive coin ever sold at auction is held by a rare 1933 American “Double Eagle” that sold for $18.9 million at Sotheby’s New York in June 2021.
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