Item: i113540

Authentic Coin of:

Great Britain
Elizabeth II – Queen: 6 February 1952–present  
80th birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen  Mother
1980 Proof Silver 25 Pence 38.61mm (28.28 grams) 0.925 Silver (0.8409 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 921a, Sp# LL3 Engraver: Arnold  Machin, Richard Guyatt
ELIZABETH II D·G·REG·F·D·, Queen Elizabeth  II facing right.
QUEEN ELIZABETH THE QUEEN MOTHER AUGUST 4th  1980, Central portrait of the Queen Mother  surrounded by a radiating pattern of symbolic  bows and lions, which are an allusion to her  family name.

Coin Notes:
This was the first time in the history of United  Kingdom coinage that a reigning monarch appeared  on the same coin as her mother.
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August  1900 – 30 March 2002) was the wife of King  George VI and the mother of Queen Elizabeth II  and Princess Margaret. She was known as Queen  Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion  with her daughter. She was the last Empress  consort of India.
Issued individually, and later 5,000 were issued  as part of 4 Crown Silver Proof Collection which  also included a 1972 Silver Wedding Crown, a  1977 Silver Jubilee Crown and a 1981 Royal  Wedding Crown with coins sourced from the  secondary market.

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

Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926) is, and has been since her accession in 1952, Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and Head of the Commonwealth. She is also Queen of 12 countries that have become independent since her accession: Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.^[b]

Elizabeth was born in London to the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and was the elder of their two daughters. She was educated privately at home. Her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive. She began to undertake public duties during World War II, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In 1947, she married Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, with whom she has four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.

Elizabeth’s many historic visits and meetings include a state visit to the Republic of Ireland and reciprocal visits to and from the Pope. She has seen major constitutional changes, such as devolution in the United Kingdom, Canadian patriation, and the decolonisation of Africa. She has also reigned through various wars and conflicts involving many of her realms. She is the world’s oldest reigning monarch as well as Britain’s longest-lived. In 2015, she surpassed the reign of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, to become the longest-reigning British monarch and the longest-reigning queen regnant in world history.

Times of personal significance have included the births and marriages of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, her coronation in 1953, and the celebration of milestones such as her Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilees in 1977, 2002, and 2012, respectively. Moments of sadness for her include the death of her father, aged 56; the assassination of Prince Philip’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten; the breakdown of her children’s marriages in 1992 (her annus horribilis); the death in 1997 of her son’s former wife, Diana, Princess of Wales; and the deaths of her mother and sister in 2002. Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican sentiments and severe press criticism of the royal family, but support for the monarchy and her personal popularity remain high.

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.