Item: i111097

Authentic Coin of:

Seychelles under James Mancham: President 29 June 1976 – 5 June 1977
25th Anniversary of the Accession of Queen Elizabeth II
1977 Proof Silver 25 Rupee 38mm (28.28 grams) 0.925 silver (0.841 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 38a
REPUBLIC OF SEYCHELLES, James Mancham facing right.
25 RUPEES QUEEN ELIZABETH II 1952 1977 SILVER JUBILEE, Royal Orb at center of legends.

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

Sir James Richard Marie Mancham KBE (11 August 1939 – 8 January 2017) was a Seychellois politician who founded the Seychelles Democratic Party and was the first President of Seychelles from 1976 to 1977.

James’s father, Richard Mancham, a successful businessman, sent James to law school in England. When Britain announced its intention to give independence to the colony, Mancham founded the Democratic Party (S.D.P.), and served as its leader until February 2005. France-Albert René founded an opposition party, the Seychelles People’s United Party (S.P.U.P) with the support of the Soviet Union. As Chief Minister of the colony, Mancham promoted tourism to the Seychelles and arranged for the building of the airport that was to make the Seychelles accessible to the rest of the world. Tourism increased and the economy developed. In 1976, he won the popular vote when the British gave the Seychelles independence. Less than a year later, in June 1977, he was deposed in a coup by Prime Minister France-Albert René, who had the support of Tanzanian-trained revolutionaries and Tanzanian-supplied weapons, whilst Mancham was attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference in London.

Mancham lived in exile in London until April 1992. During this period, Mancham was financially successful in several international business ventures and married Catherine Olsen, an Australian journalist working in London. When he returned to the Seychelles following the lifting of the ban on opposition, he resumed the promotion of tourism to the tropical islands.

He ran for president in July 1993 and finished second behind René with 36.72% of the vote. In March 1998, he ran again, receiving third place and 13.8% of the vote, behind René and Wavel Ramkalawan.

Seychelles, officially the Republic of Seychelles (French: République des Seychelles; Creole: La Repiblik Sesel), is an archipelago country in the Indian Ocean. The capital of the 115-island country, Victoria, lies 1,500 kilometres (932 mi) east of mainland East Africa. Other nearby island countries and territories include Comoros, Mayotte (region of France), Madagascar, Réunion (region of France) and Mauritius to the south; as well as the Maldives and Chagos Archipelago to the east. With a population of roughly 94,228, it has the smallest population of any sovereign African country.

Seychelles is a member of the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the United Nations. After proclamation of independence from the United Kingdom in 1976, Seychelles has developed from a largely agricultural society to a market-based diversified economy, with agriculture being supplanted by rapidly rising service and public sectors as well as tourism. From 1976 until 2015, nominal GDP output has increased nearly sevenfold and the purchasing power parity nearly sixteenfold. In late 2010s, the President Danny Faure and the National Assembly presented plans to encourage foreign investment in order to further upgrade these sectors.

Today, Seychelles boasts the highest nominal per capita GDP in Africa, excluding the French regions. It is one of only a handful of countries in Africa with a high Human Development Index. Despite the country’s newfound economic prosperity, poverty remains widespread and one finds a high level of economic inequality, one of the highest in the world, and unequal wealth distribution among the populace, the upper and ruling class commanding a vast proportion of the country’s wealth.

The Seychelles were uninhabited throughout most of recorded history. Some scholars assume that Austronesian seafarers and later Maldivian and Arab traders were the first to visit the uninhabited Seychelles. This assumption is based on the discovery of tombs, visible until 1910. The earliest recorded sighting by Europeans took place on 15 March 1503, recorded by Thomé Lopes aboard “Rui Mendes de Brito” part of the fleet of the Portuguese Admiral Vasco da Gama. Da Gama’s ships passed close to an elevated island, probably Silhouette Island and the following day Desroches Island. The earliest recorded landing was in January 1609, by the crew of the “Ascension” under Captain Alexander Sharpeigh during the fourth voyage of the British East India Company.

A transit point for trade between Africa and Asia, the islands were said to be occasionally used by pirates until the French began to take control starting in 1756 when a Stone of Possession was laid on Mahé by Captain Nicholas Morphey. The islands were named after Jean Moreau de Séchelles, Louis XV’s Minister of Finance.

The British frigate “Orpheus” commanded by Captain Henry Newcome arrived at Mahé on 16 May 1794. Terms of capitulation were drawn up and the next day Seychelles was surrendered to Britain. Jean Baptiste Quéau de Quincy, the French administrator of Seychelles during the years of war with the United Kingdom, declined to resist when armed enemy warships arrived. Instead, he successfully negotiated the status of capitulation to Britain which gave the settlers a privileged position of neutrality.

Britain eventually assumed full control upon the surrender of Mauritius in 1810, formalised in 1814 at the Treaty of Paris. Seychelles became a crown colony separate from Mauritius in 1903. Elections were held in 1966 and 1970.

Independence

Independence was granted in 1976 as a republic within the Commonwealth. In the 1970s Seychelles was “the place to be seen, a playground for film stars and the international jet set”. In 1977, a coup d’état by France Albert René ousted the first president of the republic, James Mancham. René discouraged over-dependence on tourism and declared that he wanted “to keep the Seychelles for the Seychellois”.

The 1979 constitution declared a socialist one-party state, which lasted until 1991.

In the 1980s there were a series of coup attempts against President René, some of which were supported by South Africa. In 1981, Mike Hoare led a team of 43 South African mercenaries masquerading as holidaying rugby players in the 1981 Seychelles coup d’état attempt. There was a gun battle at the airport, and most of the mercenaries later escaped in a hijacked Air India plane. The leader of this hijacking was German mercenary D. Clodo, a former member of the Rhodesian SAS. Clodo later stood trial in South Africa (where he was acquitted) as well as in his home country Germany for air piracy.

In 1986, an attempted coup led by the Seychelles Minister of Defence, Ogilvy Berlouis, caused President René to request assistance from India. In Operation Flowers are Blooming, the Indian naval vessel INS Vindhyagiri arrived in Port Victoria to help avert the coup.

The first draft of a new constitution failed to receive the requisite 60% of voters in 1992, but an amended version was approved in 1993.

In January 2013, Seychelles declared a state of emergency; the tropical cyclone Felleng caused torrential rain, and flooding and landslides destroyed hundreds of houses.

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.