The Royal Mint’s retrospective of William Wyon continues with Gothic Crown, the third Great Engravers release

After the juggernaut performance of the first two ‘Great Engravers’ coins, the third in the series has some giant-sized shoes to fill. William Wyon continues to provide the inspiration for the series, although this time he engraved a design by Scottish artist William Dyce, the 1847 classic, ‘Gothic Crown’. A heraldic masterpiece, its complexity capped the original mintage at just 8,000 pieces. The Royal Mint have an informative video on the design, which we’ve added below.

Unlike ‘Una and the Lion‘, and the subsequent ‘The Three Graces‘, the ‘Gothic Crown’ moves away from the portrayal of figurative art, instead delving into the world of shields and symbols, so while a continuation of the series, it’s actually a distinctively different piece in comparison. It’s like moving from a Britannia to a Sovereign in style. A classic of the time, and the last of a trilogy of William Wyon designs to adorn coin in the Great Engravers series, its inclusion is well judged.

The new range is as extensive as previous entrants, and sadly, that means it’s almost exclusively a high-end affair. Silver is where we’d expect affordability to be a thing, but the offerings start at a 2 oz coin, passing through three other weights, before landing at a 2 kg coin with a 53 mintage. We don’t expect gold to be a budget affair, of course, but even so, and despite there being seven sizes in the range, they start carrying a £5k price. Indeed, the Gothic Crown tops out with a single TEN KILOGRAM piece, with a sticker price no doubt double that of the average UK house. We’ve said this before, but these deserve to be owned by more collectors, and we’d dearly love to see the mint embrace copper, much like CIT has, for a small range, perhaps 2 oz, 5 oz, 1 kg, and 5 kg.

All the various coins in this range are very well presented, especially the biggest ones, but that’s no more than you would expect at this level. This is to be a two-part release. Wyon produced a strikingly original effigy of Queen Victoria for the coin back in 1846, and next year, the Royal Mint will release a second range, also dated 2021, that will replace the heraldic reverse of the original you see below, with the Victoria obverse. That one will still have a Queen Elizabeth II obverse of its own. We don’t ever remember a coin being celebrated one face at a time, but here it is. The mint will also offer special sets, which will contain one of each issue, along with an original 1847 coin. Honestly, if you can afford it, that will be a coin collector’s dream. A fine release, but one that many simply won’t be able to own, and that’s a shame.

PRESS RELEASE

The Royal Mint today (Monday 6th December) announce the third coin to be remastered as part of their Great Engravers series will be the reverse of the iconic Gothic Crown by renowned engraver William Wyon.

The original coin featured a cruciform arrangement of the Royal Arms in a Gothic style on the reverse (tails side) and the portrait of Queen Victoria on the obverse (heads side). In an unusual move, but one designed to delight keen collectors, The Royal Mint’s latest version will split the two sides of the original between two separate United Kingdom coins. The first will feature the reverse of the original coin featuring the quartered arms combined with the portrait of Her Majesty Elizabeth II designed by Jody Clark. An additional coin featuring the iconic Gothic Crown obverse is set to launch in the new year but will still be dated 2021, giving collectors a second chance to own the sought-after collectible, again combined with the current portrait of the Queen.

An extremely limited number of sets containing both the new and original coins will be created, and launched in line with the second of the two coins. One of the sets will be reserved for the Tokyo International Coin Convention where The Royal Mint, in partnership with Taisei Coins, will be holding an auction next year.

An extremely limited number of sets containing both the new and original coins will be created, and launched in line with the second of the two coins.

A limited number of sets containing both new commemorative coins will be reserved for the Tokyo International Coin Convention where The Royal Mint, in partnership with Taisei Coins, will be holding an auction next year.

The Royal Mint launched their Great Engravers range in 2019 with Una and the Lion, followed by the Three Graces, both designed by William Wyon, originally produced in 1839 and 1817 respectively. Both are well known as being incredibly beautiful and intricate designs, and the Royal Mint’s Chief engraver Gordon Summers, together with his team, have revived the designs with state-of-the-art technology. The tooling for the modern coins has been taken directly from the original tools worked on by Wyon in the 1800s, remastered by The Royal Mint’s expert team, over 200 years after the original was created.

Introduced in 1847 on the silver crown, the Gothic Crown was created by William Wyon, former Chief Engraver at The Royal Mint. Queen Victoria’s portrait was portrayed in a medieval style, representing the fanciful splendour of the era. Only 8,000 were initially minted at the time, alongside a very small quantity of gold.

Rebecca Morgan, Director of Collector Services at The Royal Mint, comments: “The Great Engravers range offers collectors a rare opportunity to own a piece of numismatic art that details one of the great engravers of The Royal Mint and his most celebrated prolific designs, as we create the historic coins of tomorrow. The low mintages also make the coins in this range the perfect collectors’ piece.

“Wyon was the original designer and maker of this coin as well as the Three Graces and also the Una and the Lion, which are equally as beautiful and collectable. He is regarded as one of the most talented engravers in history, and his work is testament to that title.”