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Great Britain
under
George VI –
King:
11 December 1936 – 6 February 1952
1942 Silver Florin (2 Shillings) 28.3mm (11.27 grams) 0.500
Silver (0.1806 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 855 | Obverse Designer: T.H. Paget | Reverse Designer: George
Krueger-Gray | Edge: Reeded
GEORGIVS VI D : G : BR : OMN : REX:, Head of King George VI left.
:FID:DEF: :IND:IMP: TWO SHILLINGS 1942 around crowned tudor rose;
thistle, letter ‘G’ and shamrock, letter ‘R’ flanking.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
available for sale in my storeall coins of Great BritainClick here to see
George
VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was
King of the United Kingdom
and the
Dominions
of the
British Commonwealth
from 11 December 1936
until his death. He was the last
Emperor of India
and the first
Head of the Commonwealth
.
As the second son of
King George V
, he was not expected to inherit
the throne and spent his early life in the shadow of his elder brother,
Edward
. He served in the
Royal Navy
and
Royal Air Force
during the
First World War
, and after it took on the usual
round of public engagements. He married
Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
in 1923 and they had
two daughters,
Elizabeth
and
Margaret
.
George’s elder brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII upon the death of
their father in 1936. However, later that year Edward revealed his desire to
marry the divorced American socialite
Wallis Simpson
. British Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin
advised Edward that for
political and religious reasons he could not marry a divorced woman and remain
king.
Edward abdicated
in order to marry, and George
ascended the throne as the third monarch of the
House of Windsor
.
During George’s reign the break-up of the
British Empire
and its transition into the
Commonwealth of Nations
accelerated. The
parliament of the
Irish Free State
removed
direct mention of the monarch from
the country’s constitution
on the day of his
accession. Within three years, the Empire and Commonwealth, except the Irish
Free State, was at
war
with
Nazi Germany
. In the next two years, war with
Italy
and
Japan
followed. Though
Britain and its allies
were ultimately
victorious, the United States and the
Soviet Union
rose as pre-eminent
world powers
and the British Empire declined.
After the
independence of India and Pakistan
in 1947,
George remained as king of both countries, but the title Emperor of India
was abandoned in June 1948. Ireland
formally declared itself a republic
and left
the Commonwealth in 1949, and India became a republic within the Commonwealth
the following year. George adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth. He
was beset by health problems in the later years of his reign. His elder
daughter, Elizabeth, succeeded him.
Great
Britain, also known as Britain, is an island in the
North Atlantic
off the north-west coast of
continental Europe
. With an area of 209,331 km2
(80,823 sq mi), it is the
largest island in Europe
and the
ninth-largest in the world
. In 2011 the island
had a population of about 61 million people, making it the
third-most populous island
in the world, after
Java in
Indonesia
and
Honshu
in
Japan
. The island is the largest in the
British Isles
archipelago
, which also includes the island of
Ireland
to its west and over
1,000 smaller surrounding islands
.
The island is dominated by an
oceanic climate
with quite narrow temperature
differences between seasons. Politically, the island is part of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
,
constituting most of its territory: most of
England
,
Scotland
, and
Wales
are on the island, with their respective
capital cities,
London
,
Edinburgh
, and
Cardiff
. The term Great Britain often extends
to include surrounding islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales.
A single
Kingdom of Great Britain
resulted from the
Union
of
Scotland
and
England
(which already comprised the
present-day countries of
England
and
Wales
) in 1707. More than a hundred years
before, in 1603,
King James VI
,
King of Scots
, had inherited the throne of
England, but it was not until 1707 that the Parliaments of the two countries
agreed to form a unified state. In 1801, Great Britain
united
with the neighboring
Kingdom of Ireland
, forming the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
,
which was renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after
the
Irish Free State
seceded in 1922.
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