Marking 85 years since the Battle of Britain, an air campaign that was probably one of the most pivotal battles of the Second World War, this new limited run of minted bullion bars is our favourite of the selection here. Depicting a Messerschmitt Bf109E lining up for a shot on a Supermarine Spitfire, but who himself is getting ‘jumped’ by a Hawker Hurricane, it’s a terrific montage of a dogfight over the iconic White Cliffs of Dover.

The use of microdots for the background is an excellent touch, integrating the mints anti-counterfeit techniques into the actual design. The back of the bar has the plan silhouette of a spitfire on it. The blank rectangle in the gold image above is where the serial number is inscribed. The 10 oz silver bar comes encapsulated, while the smaller pair are presented in blisterpacks. All are sold exclusively by the Royal Mint.

The Norse Gods range is done in conjunction with Germania Mint, who handle sales and distribution outside the UK, and Thor is the second issue in the range to date, following Odin from last October. That was a great looking bar by Dan Thorne, and he’s done an even better job with Thor.

The popular god is depicted with his two goats pulling his chariot, while he waves his enchanted hammer, Mjölnir, above his head. The goats are called Tanngniost (Teeth-grinder) and Tanngrisnir (Teeth-barer), because, er, of course they are… You’ve got to love Norse mythology! Great design, and it suits the bar shape perfectly.

There are one and ten ounce silver bars, and a twenty gram gold, the latter sold by the Royal Mint, with the silver pair also sold by Germania Mint in their own packaging. The small silver bar sold by the Royal Mint has the same packaging as the gold above, while the Germania Mint bars have different artwork. The ten ounce bar is just encapsulated at the Royal Mint, but comes in the blisterpack at Germania Mint. Also available at the Royal Mint were very limited runs of the silver bars with an antique finish, but those sell out almost instantly.

Another series getting a second release, St. George & the Dragon is clearly inspired by the iconic Benedetto Pistrucci sovereign, and takes reimagined variants of it by various modern and historical artists as inspiration. The first issue was by Royal Mint regular, Jody Clark, but for the second, we’re back almost a century, with an updated version of a George Kruger Gray original, one he did in 1935 for the Silver Jubilee Crown, but which lost out to a Percy Metcalfe design.

Despite being a gorgeous design, this is the first time it’s appearing on a coin, so kudos to the mint for raiding their extensive archive yet again, and bringing another beautiful coin to life. It has that guilloche background as a security measure, of course, which detracts from the artwork a little (although we understand its use), so we’d love to see a full numismatic of it in the future. We reckon that will look awesome with an antique finish.

A three coin range, there’s a one ounce silver, and one and quarter ounce gold.

The 90s is the fourth of the Six Decades of James Bond series. This was a proof coin series originally, and the bullion releases have been lagging behind a little. There are seven coins in the range, if we include the ‘Completer’ that ended the series, and apart from the lower quality strike, and the microengraved border inscriptions, these are fundamentally the same.

They do a decent job of bringing together many of the key elements of the franchise, based around the gadget-laden vehicles, and with a background inscribed with the films from that specific decade. Just a single gold and silver variant, both weighing an ounce each. You can see the rest in our monster James Bond Thematic coin guide.

The Greyhound of Richmond bullion coins finally catch up with the proof coins, and are available in five variants, across three metals, with platinum putting in a rare appearance. There’s little to say about this excellent range we haven’t already said (this is the eighth design overall, seventh in bullion form), so you’ll forgive me for not doing so again, but you can see the whole of this range to date in our Coin Series Profile.