• The Royal Mint has unveiled the fifth coin in its British Monarchs Collection featuring the remastered portrait of Henry VIII.
• This is the first coin in the collection to feature His Majesty King Charles III’s official coinage portrait on the obverse.

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 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.

Rebecca Morgan, Director of Collector Services at The Royal Mint said: “Despite the challenge caused by the quality of Henry VIII’s original portrait, the effigy has been faithfully recreated in fine detail using state-of-the-art technology and numismatic processes.

We are delighted to add Henry VIII as the fifth addition to the popular British Monarchs Collection. People love to collect the coins of different monarchs, and the British Monarchs series gives the chance for collectors to add key monarchs to complete their collections. With this being the first coin in the series to feature the official coinage portrait of His Majesty King Charles III, we do anticipate a high demand for these coins from collectors. There has been significant international appeal with The British Monarchs Collection, with its coins being bought by collectors in multiple countries.”

Chris Barker, Information and Research Manager at The Royal Mint Museum said: “Due to the debasement, good examples of coins from this period of Henry VIII’s reign are rare to find, meaning that the definition of the reverse and obverse designs have been worn away through time. The coin used to recreate the King’s portrait was a testoon, one of the coins that would have been affected by the debasement.”

The Royal Mint’s British Monarchs series spans four Royal Houses – Tudor, Stuart, Hanover and Windsor: formerly known as Saxe-Coburg, Gotha – remastering iconic designs in high definition for the first time thanks to the latest technology and minting techniques.

For more information about the Henry VIII coin, please visit British Monarchs - Henry VII- House of Tudor | The Royal Mint. 

 

ENDS

 

Coin Title	British Monarchs King Henry VII 2022 UK 5oz Gold Proof Coin	British Monarchs King Henry VII 2022 UK 2oz Gold Proof Coin	British Monarchs King Henry VII 2022 UK 1oz Gold Proof Coin
Denomination	£500	£200	£100
Issuing Authority	UK	UK	UK
Alloy	999.9 Au	999.9 Au	999.9 Au
Weight (g)	156.30	62.42	31.21
Diameter (mm)	50.00	40.00	32.69
Obverse Designer	Martin Jennings	Martin Jennings	Martin Jennings
Reverse Designer	N/A	N/A	N/A
Quality	Proof	Proof	Proof
Additional Features	N/A	N/A	N/A
Limited Edition Presentation	75	175	100
RRP	£10,820	£4,485	£2,370

 

Coin Title	British Monarchs King Henry VII 2022 UK 10oz Silver Proof Coin	British Monarchs King Henry VII 2022 UK 5oz Silver Proof Coin	British Monarchs King Henry VII 2022 UK 2oz Silver Proof Coin	British Monarchs King Henry VII 2022 UK 1oz Silver Proof Coin
Denomination	£10	£10	£5	£2
Issuing Authority	UK	UK	UK	UK
Alloy	999 Ag	999 Ag	999 Ag	999 Ag
Weight	312.59	156.30	62.86	31.21
Diameter	65.00	65.00	40.00	38.61
Obverse Designer	Martin Jennings	Martin Jennings	Martin Jennings	Martin Jennings
Reverse Designer	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Quality	Proof	Proof	Proof	Proof
Additional Features	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Limited Edition Presentation	150	275	700	1250
RRP	£885	£455	£180	£92.50

 

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