50 Pence - Elizabeth II Platinum Wedding - The Honeymoon Portrait 1947

Issued to mark the 70th anniversary of the 1947 marriage of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, this piece draws on a portrait taken during the royal couple's honeymoon at Broadlands, the Mountbatten family estate in Hampshire. Philip had inherited the title Duke of Edinburgh just hours before the wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey on 20 November 1947 — a deliberate decision by the King to ensure Philip held a British peerage before the marriage was solemnized.

Guernsey's issuing authority has produced commemorative 50 pence pieces in considerable volume since the 1970s, and the gold-plated copper-nickel format used here was the standard commercial choice for mass-market royal commemoratives of this decade.