August 7, 2013

Finest Hour 120, Autumn 2003

Page 24

BY DEVOY WHITE

When in 1972 J. Eric Engstrom wrote his seminal work, The Medallic Portraits of Sir Winston Churchill, only two pieces of national coinage had been issued in commemoration of Churchill, against scores of non-denominational medals. Neither of the two coins had been well received.

The British crown was a disappointment to sculptor Oscar Nemon, critics and the public. Detail was missing; the figure was indistinct and almost unrecognizable. In its haste to get the coin issued, the Royal Mint had refused to allow Nemon to complete his work and had taken his unfinished clay models to make striking dies. Today the coin is so plentiful that hundreds are offered on eBay for a few dollars, with few takers.

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The other coin was a Yemeni rival, which was probably never actually placed in circulation. It was created by the Royalist Government in exile, which never regained power. It is likely that the riyal was never an official coin, only a memento. Only 6000 were struck, but it is still readily available.

In 1972, Europa (the fledgling European Community) issued two coins, a gold 50 Ecu with Churchill and Edward Heath, and a silver Thaler commemorating Churchill.

Beginning with the Churchill Centenary in 1974, commemorative coinage proliferated. The Isle of Man, Turks and Caicos Islands, Belize, Cook Islands, Cayman Islands and Paraguay issued commemorative coins that year. By 2000, when Somalia produced a series of three, Alderney, France, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Niue, Russia, and Tristan Da Cunha had also introduced commemoratives.

Metals used were copper/nickel, silver, gold and platinum. At least seven coins contain Churchill cameos, while three others (including one from Russia) picture the Big Three. The Isle of Man leads in Churchill coinage, with four series containing thirteen coins in the four different metals. Gold was used by France, the Turks and Caicos, Cook and Cayman Islands, Alderney, Belize, Guernsey, the Falklands, Niue, Tristan Da Cunha, the Isle of Man, and Paraguay. Platinum coins were offered only by the Isle of Man.

Pictured here are over twenty coins, some of which represent additional coins in the same series. In numismatic parlance, a “series” comprises coins made with the same die art but having different face values and/or different metals.

Coins pictured are from the individual collections of Dana Niendorf, Brian Hardy and this writer. Each entry includes series information. In addition, Krause and Mishler’s Catalog of World Coins lists several which were not available for photographing. The count continues to grow. My own count was seventy-five, until I found that in 1990 the Cayman Islands issued four gold coins ($250, $100, $50 and $25) which contain a Churchill cameo. They were also issued in a proof set.

From a modest beginning in 1965 with Churchill’s death, national commemorative coins have increased in value as well as number. Some are now extremely rare and priced in the high hundreds of dollars. The ordinary collector views them with despair: if they can be found at all, they prove unaffordable. But that is the way of collecting, and Churchill coinage is always worth the collector’s effort.

These coins are “legal tender” in that they carry a face value, but many were intended for collectors rather than for circulation. Many had a very small edition (less than 1,000 in many cases) and a value far beyond their face value. 

Mr. White ([email protected]) is a longtime CC member and collector of Churchill memorabilia residing in Carmichael, California