Tristan da Cunha, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic with fewer than 300 permanent inhabitants, has issued commemorative crowns since the 1970s largely as a revenue mechanism — the island's coins never circulate in any meaningful sense. This piece honors Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India and a figure whose assassination by the IRA in 1979 shocked the British establishment perhaps more than any political killing of that decade.
Gold-plated copper-nickel at this weight occupies an awkward commercial niche: too thin a plating to hold long-term, issued 36 years after his death.
Tristan da Cunha, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic with fewer than 300 permanent inhabitants, has issued commemorative crowns since the 1970s largely as a revenue mechanism — the island's coins never circulate in any meaningful sense. This piece honors Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India and a figure whose assassination by the IRA in 1979 shocked the British establishment perhaps more than any political killing of that decade.
Gold-plated copper-nickel at this weight occupies an awkward commercial niche: too thin a plating to hold long-term, issued 36 years after his death.