1 Crown - Elizabeth II In Flanders Fields, Gold Plated

Issued on the centenary of the First World War's opening year, this piece commemorates John McCrae's poem written in May 1915 following the death of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer near Ypres. McCrae composed it in roughly twenty minutes while sitting in the back of an ambulance — the original manuscript was nearly discarded before a fellow officer retrieved it.

The gold plating on copper-nickel crowns of this type was applied selectively to highlight design elements rather than as a blanket wash, a technique Gibraltar's issuing authority used across several WWI centenary releases in 2014.