The Royal Mint’s ‘Queens Beasts Completer’ coins make the transition to gold and silver bullion bars

From 2016 to 2021, the Royal Mint ran a programme of bullion coins called ‘The Queen’s Beasts’, featuring representations of ten heraldic animals originally sculpted by James Woodford RA for the coronation ceremony of Queen Elizabeth II, held in Westminster Abbey in 1953. The whole concept was inspired by the King’s Beasts of Henry VIII that to this day, still line the bridge over the moat at Hampton Court Palace, and also immortalised in bullion by the Royal Mint as the Tudor Beast’s collection.

Each of the original ten coins featured one of the heraldic creatures, realised by designer Jody Clark. It was an extremely popular series, and to round it all off, the mint produced what it called a ‘completer’ coin, which merged the ten beasts into a single design, around a central effigy of Queen Elizabeth II.

That completer is back on a new range of square bullion bars, which are, to all intents and purposes, the same design. There are a couple of changes, however. The central effigy has gone back to the original Mary Gillick penned effort, the first to feature QEII, instead of the Jody Clark one, the last to do the honours. The composition inscription has moved to the obverse, which was a no-brainer given these carry no denomination. Finally, to fill the space created in the move from a round to a square format, each of the four areas contains a flower from the four nations using the same motif as the 1953 Coronation Crown. An inspired touch, we think.

The back of each bar has a repeating pattern on it, which, combined with the guilloche pattern on the reverse, should make these more secure than normal from counterfeiting. The Royal Mint logo, name, and the bar composition, also feature here. There are four variants in the range, with silver at one-ounce and ten ounces, and gold at five-grams and one-ounce. All have limited mintages. The big silver bar is encapsulated, but the other three come in themed blisterpacks if purchased from the mint. A terrific addition to the minted bar market, they’re available to order now.