1 Crown - Elizabeth II 90th Birthday, Service To British Empire

Tristan da Cunha, the most remote permanently inhabited island on Earth, has no meaningful domestic coin circulation — its "issues" are produced entirely for the collector market under license arrangements with the British Crown Dependencies. This piece marks Elizabeth II's 90th birthday, one of dozens of commemorative programs issued in that year by various British Overseas Territories, many sharing near-identical specifications and striking sources.

The gold plating over copper-nickel is a common cost-reduction technique in modern commemorative production. It has no historical precedent in Tristanian monetary practice, because there is none to speak of.