5 Pounds - Elizabeth II D-Day, Gold Proof Issue

Alderney occupied a peculiar position on June 6, 1944: it was the only British territory that could not be liberated that day. The island had been entirely evacuated of its civilian population in June 1940 and then fortified so heavily by the Germans — as part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall obsession — that it remained garrisoned until the Wehrmacht's formal surrender on May 16, 1945, nearly a week after VE Day. No Allied troops landed there on D-Day at all.

That irony gives this commemorative an edge most D-Day issues lack. KM#38b is one of several metal variants Alderney produced for the 60th anniversary, with the gold proof commanding the series.