This coin issue is the first time a half pound denomination was struck in England. The lis privy mark denotes the first coins that were struck during Elizabeth’s reign, the coin is also distinguished by its portrait and a wire border. The portrait is the earliest of Elizabeth’s side profile used on her gold coinage and was never used again on coins of later issues. As this was a first attempt at Elizabeth’s likeness on a coin it is most probably taken from a sitting with the queen and Derek Anthony who was the chief engraver at the time. Later issues see adjustments to the portrait but no signs of the queen ageing; they are instead variations of this iconic image of the Virgin queen. The portrait seen here has a prominent chin, a small heavily arched crown and elongated face that were all adjusted in later issues to flatter a monarch who took a keen interest in her portraiture.

Elizabethan half pounds of the first issue are hugely rare and are not included in most of the great collections of English coins. The extremely low mintage of the coin is due the type of gold used for the first issue. Half pounds were struck from Crown gold (.917) whilst over 90% of the gold used in the first issue was fine gold (.995) as utilised in Mary’s reign. The fine gold produced a number of first issue angels, half angels and a small amount of sovereigns. The Crown gold proved to be a more practical fineness for producing coins and it became the principal gold used in Elizabeth’s future coinage, which is why half pounds of the subsequent privy mark (cross crosslet) are considerably easier to acquire.

An article by Brown and Comber contained a study of the amount of Elizabethan gold coins that had been offered by the retail lists of Spink and Seaby’s over a forty-year period, over 1300 gold coins were catalogued but the first issue half pound was never listed. Two examples can be seen in the plates of the Schneider collection (736-737) and a further example in the plates of the Brown and Comber article (G1) although none of the examples have this coins legend variety that is possibly unique.

AB Coins:
ELIZABETH D G ANG FRA Z HIB REG
G1:
ELIZABET D G ANG FRA Z HIB REGINA
736:
ELIZABET D G ANG FRA Z HIB REGINA
737:
ELIZABETH D G ANG FRA Z HIB REGIN