UK Commemorative coins for 2020

[augsburger]

It would have been very fitting if the EU leaving date had been coincident with the VE Day seventy-fifth anniversary.

Or even more fitting had it been set for February 30th.

[eurocoin]

[eurocoin]

I only like the VE-Day coin a little bit.

The Team GB 50p is absolute trash. The Agatha Christie 2 pound coin looks childish. The waves on the Mayflower coin look ridiculous. The 5 pound coin is just ugly.

[Alan71]

I only like the VE-Day coin a little bit.

The Team GB 50p is absolute trash. The Agatha Christie 2 pound coin looks childish. The waves on the Mayflower coin look ridiculous. The 5 pound coin is just ugly.

Yes, I’d have to agree with you on all that.  The Team GB one reminds me of the 2011 WWF 50p.  Far too much going on.  And the jigsaw thing has been done before (Act of Union £2, 2007).

[augsburger]

I only like the VE-Day coin a little bit.

The Team GB 50p is absolute trash. The Agatha Christie 2 pound coin looks childish. The waves on the Mayflower coin look ridiculous. The 5 pound coin is just ugly.

The Agatha Christie one makes me think it's all about Jigsaws. The Team GB one looks like someone just left their trash out, the VE Day one shows why people don't usually look that good on coins, the Mayflower one looks good, but then it's a bit hard to mess up ships like that anyway. The £5 looks good, but stopped collecting those when they stopped selling them for £5.

[FosseWay]

Agree with augsburger.

Re the VE Day coin - it's not people per se that's the problem, but rather full-face portraits. The small people in the background work OK but the main woman suffers from the same manic look as William and Kate on their wedding £5 and as the King and Queen of Sweden on their wedding issue in 1976. Mints in general need to learn to keep to profiles when illustrating people. Ironically the one full-face yet realistic portrait on coins that doesn't look odd is the (in English terms) original - Henry VIII.

I actually quite like the £5, but as you say I've given up collecting them. It's not the designer's or the Mint's fault that George III was ugly as sin. When you consider that these coins essentially are commemorative medals rather than coins, I think it works quite well. Certainly better than some of the last couple of decades' £5 coins.

[FosseWay]

Wonder if 'Remainer' coin collectors will add the Brexit coin to their collections?

Speaking as a remainer, I will add it to my collection if I come across it in circulation or swap it with someone who has a duplicate/doesn't want it. I won't specifically go looking for it on the RM's website, but I don't do this with other new issues either. I don't see the point of boycotting coins representing political views I disagree with; I have plenty of coins from Nazi Germany, the USSR and Fascist Italy in my collection, for example, but I have nothing but contempt for those regimes.

But I suspect any that make it into circulation will be removed by leavers wanting to add them to their Boris shrines.

I think the Brexit coin was a bad idea, not because I voted the other way and not because of the chaos caused by the moving of the date (that's not the Mint's or the coin's fault). For the same reason that we tend to avoid commemorating living people on coins, I don't think we should be commemorating current political events either. And yes, I'd put the 1973 issue into that category as well; I have always thought that was a bit of an oddity given that there were no commemoratives for other events at the time they occurred in that period. (The 1992/3 and 1998 ones are a bit different, as they commemorate an anniversary and the rotating EC presidency.)

Commemorating current political events is divisive, Brexit being the archetypal example. There wasn't a Good Friday Agreement coin either, and that was on the face of it a more generally positive event but nevertheless with its detractors. But even when an event isn't as charged as Brexit is, it takes time before its true effect on history, for good or bad, is measurable. This coin just smacks of triumphalism, tbh, and regardless of your view on Brexit, rubbing the other lot's faces in it just isn't helpful.

[Deeman]

The 50p Team GB coin can only be described as a mishmash. What on earth is the mind set at the RM!

[eurocoin]

Designer names:

Team GB 50p: David Knapton

Agatha Christie 2 pound: David Lawrence
Mayflower 2 pound: Chris Costello
VE Day 2 pound: Dominique Evans

George III: Dominique Evans

[Alan71]

It’s something of a relief to see that the Royal Mint BU set is still £55.  It’s been that price for a few years now so will probably go up next year, regardless of the number of coins and face value within it.

[Alan71]

Looking back over eurocoin’s previous posts in this topic, a quick summary of what isn’t in the annual sets but coming this year (£5 coins excluded as I’ve lost all interest in them):

Brexit 50p
Dinosaurs 50p (3 coins - iguanodon, megalosaurus and hylaeosaurus)
Paddington 50p (2 more coins)

James Cook £2
(Image from previous post by eurocoin):


Any I’ve missed?  Guessing more will be announced and issued during the year though.

[Deeman]

Believe that a Rupert Bear is on the cards.

[Alan71]

Believe that a Rupert Bear is on the cards.

Can’t see it mentioned anywhere within this topic?  Unless I’ve missed it.  Rupert first published in 1920, so seems absolutely inevitable that there will be.

[Deeman]

Rupert Bear is planned for next year as it is then 100 years since it was first published.

[eurocoin]

Despite the recent release of new 2 pound coins into circulation, the Royal Mint still has an enormous stock of 2016-dated ones and it is unlikely that any of the 2020-dated 2 pound coins will be released into general circulation.