Item: i101415

Authentic Coin of:

Belgium – King Baudouin’s marriage to Doña Fabiola de Mora y Aragon
1960 Silver 50 Francs (50 Frank) 
30mm (12.40 grams) 0.835 Silver (0.3356 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 152.1
BALDVINVS – FABIOLA C. VAN DIONANT · XV · XII · MCMLX · Heads of King Baudouin I and Queen Fabiola 
facing left.
BELGICA F 50 C.V.D.Crowned coats of arms of the King and Queen 
flanked by two sprigs.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

Baudouin

He was the elder son of King Leopold III (1901-83) and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden (1905-35). Because he had no children with his wife, Fabiola de Mora, the crown passed to his younger brother, Albert II (formerly Prince of Liège), following his death.

Baudouin was born in the Château du Stuyvenberg, near Laeken, Brussels, in Belgium, in 1930, the son of Prince Leopold, the then Duke of Brabant, and his first wife, Astrid of Sweden. His father became King of the Belgians, as Leopold III, in 1934 and Prince Baudouin became Duke of Brabant. Baudouin’s mother died in 1935 in an automobile accident.

Part of Leopold III’s unpopularity was the result of a second marriage in 1941 to Mary Lilian Baels, an English-born Belgian commoner, later known as Princess de Réthy. More controversial had been Leopold’s decision to surrender to Nazi Germany during the Second World War, when Belgium was invaded in 1940; many Belgians questioned his loyalties, but a commission of inquiry exonerated him of treason after the war. Though reinstated in a plebiscite, the controversy surrounding Leopold led to his abdication.

During the war the king was deported by command of Adolf Hitler to Hirschstein.

King Leopold III requested the Belgian Government and the Parliament to approve a law delegating his royal powers to his son, Prince Baudouin, who took the constitutional oath before the United Chambers of the Belgian Parliament as Prince Royal on 11 August 1950. He ascended the throne and became the fifth King of the Belgians upon taking the constitutional oath on 17 July 1951, one day following his father’s abdication.

The Congolese called the young king Mwana Kitoko (“beautiful boy”).

Queen Fabiola of Belgium (born Doña Fabiola de Mora y Aragón on 11 June 1928 – 5 December 2014) was Queen of the Belgians from her marriage to King Baudouin in 1960 until his death in 1993. The couple had no children, so the Crown passed to her husband’s younger brother, King Albert II.

Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi) and has a population of about 11 million people.

Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups: the Dutch-speaking, mostly Flemish community, which constitutes about 59% of the population, and the French-speaking, mostly Walloon population, which comprises 41% of all Belgians. Additionally, there is a small group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area, and bordering Germany.

Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other. Its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region, officially bilingual, is a mostly French-speaking enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium’s linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of government.

Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries; it once covered a somewhat larger area than the current Benelux group of states. The region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, the area of Belgium was a prosperous and cosmopolitan centre of commerce and culture. From the 16th century until the Belgian Revolution in 1830, when Belgium seceded from the Netherlands, the area of Belgium served as the battleground between many European powers, causing it to be dubbed the “Battlefield of Europe,” a reputation strengthened by both world wars.

Upon its independence, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. The second half of the 20th century was marked by rising tensions between the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking citizens fueled by differences in language and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Despite the reforms, tensions between the groups remain; the formation of a coalition government took 18 months following the June 2010 federal election.

Belgium is a founding member of the European Union, Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO, and a part of the trilateral Benelux Union. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EU’s official seats as well as the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area.

Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as “very high” in the Human Development Index.