25 Pounds - Elizabeth II Bonomi Pattern - Victoria

Joseph Bonomi the Younger produced his uncrowned portrait of Victoria in 1844 as an unsolicited submission to the Royal Mint, which ultimately rejected it in favor of William Wyon's established effigy. The design sat unused for over 175 years. This 2021 Ascension Island issue resurrects it specifically because Ascension — as a dependency rather than a sovereign state — operates outside the formal constraints of Royal Mint coinage policy, giving the issuer latitude to deploy rejected or historically marginal designs that could never appear on British domestic currency.