Una and the Lion

National Museum of American History / Public domain · resizedfile

The Una and the Lion is a British £5 gold coin depicting Queen Victoria. It is characterized by the Royal Mint Museum as "one of the most beautiful coins in the world." Designed by William Wyon in 1839, it commemorates the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign (in 1837). The coins were first produced in 1839 and were intended for collector sets rather than for circulation. The production ran to a few hundred coins including a number of variations such as different metals, different hairbands on the depiction of the queen, different edge types, and a variation in the reverse inscription. The coin is the lightest of the British £5 coins, weighing only 38.7–39.3 grams (about 1¼ troy ounce).

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