Jubilee Crown

Coronation Jubilee Crown, reverse
silver
2003

Coronation Jubilee Crown: final design

Coronation Jubilee Crown: silver

Coronation Jubilee Crown: gold

It began with a letter from the Royal Mint asking me if I would be willing to present rough designs for a Jubilee Crown Piece, in anonymous competition with three other artists.

I had been told that a radical design would not be ruled out and my love of working with words led me in the direction of a solution where text would be the imagery and letters would make the design. I had been offered words from the Poet Laureate but it seemed to me that to celebrate the jubilee of a popular monarch something in the manner of a loyal toast was called for. What better indeed than the simple shout, "God Save The Queen".

The formula I hit upon did not use the radius of the circle and spread the energy all over the round field. This became a guiding rule of the design. No lines should lead back to the centre even in the lettering around the edge. There were of course many problems left with words and dates to be incorporated and, most important of all, an image of the Queen herself. I tried to make a simple profile in as few lines as possible with all the marks the same thickness as the lettering, thereby unifying the design for both sides of the coin.

It was not long before I learned that, subject to the approval of the Queen, my design had been chosen. 

I made my first visit to the mint itself. This turned out to be a huge enterprise planted in the countryside near Llantrisant. It is probably the only building in the land where you have to surrender all the coins you have on you as you enter, to be kept in a locked box until you leave. 

In the more industrial parts of the mint there are vast machines stamping out blanks while in other areas devices for copying and reduction, themselves beautiful pieces of engineering, work at their tasks like giant old gramophones. It was one of these that would scale down the model of my coin, now a plaster disc the size of a dinner plate, to its eventual size. At every stage I was given (and took) the opportunity of fine tuning the model with craftsmen whose deft expertise I could only envy.

Adapted from a text by Tom Phillips for The Camellia Journal, 2003.