Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
2 Shillings - Elizabeth II 1st portrait
| Issuer | Rhodesia and Nyasaland |
|---|---|
| Year | 1955-1957 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 11.31 g |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Right-facing laureate effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, depicting the youthful first portrait modelled by Mary Gillick, with a laurel wreath in her hair and a lightly draped truncation. The portrait is set within a beaded border, with the circular legend reading + QUEEN·ELIZABETH·THE·SECOND surrounding the bust. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | A perched African Fish-Eagle displayed facing, clutching a fish in its talons, the bird's wings slightly raised and dividing the royal cypher E R to either side. The legend RHODESIA AND NYASALAND arcs above, while the denomination TWO SHILLINGS and the date appear below, all contained within a beaded border. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland existed for only a decade — 1953 to 1963 — before African nationalist pressure and British political recalculation dissolved it. These early federation coins, struck at the Royal Mint in London and later at the Pretoria Mint, were among the first purpose-built issues for the new entity, replacing the Southern Rhodesian coinage that had circulated prior. The florin denomination carried over from that earlier series almost by inertia, a relic of pre-decimal British convention applied to a territory that would never see decimalization under federation governance.
The federation's dissolution came before the coinage could fully embed itself in daily commerce across all three territories.