1 Crown - Elizabeth II HMS Hood

HMS Hood's destruction on 24 May 1941 — sunk by the Bismarck in under three minutes with the loss of 1,415 men — remains one of the most shocking single naval losses in British history. Only three of her crew survived. Tristan da Cunha, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic, has issued an extensive series of commemorative crowns tied to Royal Navy history, this piece being one of dozens in that program.

Gold-plated copper-nickel strikes of this type are produced in the tens of thousands and circulate almost exclusively among thematic collectors rather than on the island itself, whose population has never exceeded 300.