The Royal Mint returns to Tudor times with a remastered portrait of Henry VIII for its fifth British Monarchs coin

The fifth release in the Royal Mint’s ‘British Monarchs Collection’ is here, and launches the series second journey through time by returning to its Tudor beginnings. If you’ve yet to encounter this series, it is a 21-coin, 5-year programme, reproducing classic coin designs from British history, from the Tudor,
Stuart, Hanover, and Saxe-Coburg, Gotha & Windsor dynasties,

For 2022, we saw a single release for each of those four dynasties, and the appearance of this coin would seem to suggest the same is planned again. Monarch’s rarely get as famous as the subject this time around, King Henry VIII, The historical adventures of Henry VIII are legendary. A beast of a man, probably not what you would call a model husband, and the creator of the Church of England, few individuals have left their mark as he did, even down to his daughter, the equally legendary Elizabeth I, continuing the tradition.

We liked the Henry VII coin the most of all the 2022 issues, simply because it took its inspiration from the earliest period, and veered the furthest from the modern style. You could see the history in it. The same is true here. A wonderful design, rich with the flavour of the period, this 500-year-old coin has made the transfer to modernity with aplomb. It’s also the first in the series to feature the effigy of King Charles III on the obverse.

The same wide range is here again, with no changes. There are four silver (1, 2, 5, 10 oz) and three gold (1, 2, 5 oz) coins, all boxed with a Certificate of Authenticity. In addition, the regular two-coin set, based around a two-ounce gold coin, along with an original historical coin, returns. The historical coin in this case is a gorgeous Gold Angel coin. The mint is also offering a silver ‘Second-head’ Groat, equally terrific. Available to buy now, it’s a superb addition. I’ve also knocked-up one of our Coin Series Profiles, where you can see all the issues together.

PRESS RELEASE

The Royal Mint, official maker of UK coins, has unveiled the fifth coin in its British Monarchs Collection. The coin, which features the remastered portrait of Henry VIII, is the fifth coin in The British Monarchs Collection and the second in the collection to feature a King from the House of Tudor. Henry VIII’s Father, Henry VII, featured on the first coin of the series. One of the United Kingdom’s most infamous monarchs, Henry VIII reigned between 1509 and 1547, presiding over monumental changes which brought England into the Protestant Reformation.

During his reign, Henry VIII turned to debasing his coinage, which involved combining the precious metal content of a coin with a more common ‘base’ metal such as copper. Coins were struck with increasing amounts of copper, which has a thin layer of silver applied in order to make them more acceptable. This layer eventually wore away, especially around the nose of the Henry VIII’s forward facing portrait. This tell-tale sign on debased coins gave Henry VIII an unfavourable nickname, ‘Old Coppernose’.

The debasement of the coinage affected the quality of Henry VIII’s portrait, making it one of the most difficult of the original portraits to reproduce for the British Monarch’s Collection, as the fineness and clarity of the design had lost definition over the years.

To remaster the original Henry VIII coin as part of the British Monarch’s series, The Royal Mint’s talented design team combined their exceptional craftsmanship skills with innovative technology to successfully remaster the Henry VIII coin design. The design team, utilised state of the art technology at the very beginning, with scanners being used to examine the original coin multiple times to provide clear reference points to the design. This, along with liaising with the Royal Mint Museum regularly, ensured that the Henry VIII coin design had been remastered faithfully, with clarity added to the modern version of the original coin. The remastered Henry VIII coin design depicts what the design would have looked like once the coin was struck, prior to it losing its fineness of design.