Falkland Islands: royal rejection

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In 1986 the Falkland Islands wished to commemorate the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.

The Royal Mint commissioned English artistMichael Rizzello to provide a design for a collector coin.

Above you see Mr Rizzello's sketch of the design.

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Here you see Mr Rizzello's plaster model of his design.

Is this just a poor photo, or did something go horribly wrong.

Usually Mr Rizzello had produced superb work, and he had decades of experience by then.

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Deputy Mint Master Dr Jeremy Gerhard considered the model to be of poor quality.

He advised the Falkland Islands to reject the design.

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Falkland Islands, 25 pounds, 1986.  Royal Wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.

Robert Elderton was chosen to provide the issued design, seen above.

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Don't know about the plaster, but I think I know what went wrong with the photo. The original was in colour. Someone decided to make it a b/w picture. It was either not yet possible to turn it into greyscale at this time, or whoever transformed it made the wrong choice. Alternatively, it was transferred by fax through a machine that was badly manipulated. Pure b/w is meant for well printed text, in order e.g. to facilitate OCR. It does weird things to pictures.

Peter