'Official Coronation Portrait' Commemorative Strike

In 2012 the nation celebrated The Queen's Diamond Jubilee and in 2015 we honoured another majestic milestone - Elizabeth II is now the longest reigning monarch in British history.

To celebrate, one of the most iconic images of Her Majesty has been immortalised forever onto a stunning 24-carat gold-plated commemorative strike. Officially licensed from the archives of The Royal Collection, this famous portrait was taken by Cecil Beaton on 2 June, 1953 immediately following The Queen's coronation. It perfectly captured the young queen radiant and resplendent and represented for manythe beginning of a new age, a time for optimism and innovation, that the press at the time termed 'the new Elizabethan era'.

Born on the 21st of April, 1926, in Mayfair, London, ElizabethAlexandra Mary was the first child of Prince Albert, Duke of York (later King George VI), and his wife, Elizabeth. She was named Elizabeth after her mother, Alexandra after George V's mother who had died six months earlier, and Mary after her grandmother her close family called her 'Lilibet'. As a granddaughter of the monarch in the male line, Elizabeth's full style at birth was Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth of York. She was third in the line of succession to the throne, behind her uncle, Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, but to be the niece of the future King. Her father, the Duke of York, the second son of King George V, was a shy man with a crippling stammer who had hoped to live his life in the shadow of the throne rather than upon it. His brother King Edward VIII ascended the throne on 20th January 1936. However, just 11 months into his reign, Edward renounced his royal title, thus, Elizabeth's father became King George VI, making Elizabeth a direct heir to the throne. The circumstances of The Queen's accession on 6th February 1952 could not have been more dramatic. The Princess was on a tour of the commonwealth some 4,000 miles away from home, at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya. The news of her fathers' death was broken to her by her husband, The Duke of Edinburgh. On that very same day, at the age of twentysix and a mother of two small children, she was proclaimed queen. The solemn coronation ceremony, held sixteen months later in Westminster Abbey was the first televisedcoronation in our history - with an estimated audience of 20 million people watching the service on TV and another 12 million listening to it on the radio. The event established the television in British life with many families, acquiring their first sets specifically for the occasion. Throughout her sixty year reign, The Queen has risen to challenges posed by enormous social change and technological progress, changes that could scarcely have been imagined on that February day in 1952.

Since she became Queen, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, has been a reassuring presence providinga sense of continuity in a quickly changing and sometimes uncertain world. She has served faithfully and unflinchingly through the good times and the bad and continues to fulfil her duties with a pace and dedication that one can only marvel at.