Beowulf entered the Royal Mint's bullion program as part of a broader push to position British-themed literary and mythological subjects against the dominance of sovereign and Britannia issues in the collector market. The poem itself survives in a single manuscript, the Nowell Codex, held at the British Library — written down around 1000 AD but describing events set some four centuries earlier in Scandinavia, making it an odd choice for a coin marketed on Britishness.
The .9999 fineness puts this issue one step above the standard Britannia bullion specification of .9167, a distinction the Mint has leaned on heavily since upgrading its gold bullion line in 2013.
Beowulf entered the Royal Mint's bullion program as part of a broader push to position British-themed literary and mythological subjects against the dominance of sovereign and Britannia issues in the collector market. The poem itself survives in a single manuscript, the Nowell Codex, held at the British Library — written down around 1000 AD but describing events set some four centuries earlier in Scandinavia, making it an odd choice for a coin marketed on Britishness.
The .9999 fineness puts this issue one step above the standard Britannia bullion specification of .9167, a distinction the Mint has leaned on heavily since upgrading its gold bullion line in 2013.