Boehm's design, with a crown fitting Victoria's head, was used for the Afghanistan Medal (1881). Wyon did so, and pattern coins were struck several times over the next three years, but no version satisfied everyone involved. Victoria sat for Boehm again on 28 February, and work had advanced to the point where Fremantle suggested having the Royal Mint's modeller and engraver, Leonard Charles Wyon (William's son) prepare steel coinage dies. Fremantle visited Boehm three days later, and, still concerned about the crown, asked for advice from the Tower of London and from the College of Arms.
In January 1880 the queen's daughter, Princess Louise, viewed Boehm's work, and suggested a larger crown, and on 20 February, Victoria paid a call on the sculptor, and approved the revised crown. Keary replied that "in the case of Greek coins I need not add the crowns are put on as if meant to be worn and not to tumble off at the slightest movement". Although this would be similar in style to the 1877 Empress of India Medal, Fremantle was dubious about the headgear and wrote to Charles Francis Keary at the British Museum asking if there was precedent in numismatics for this. He wrote again on 1 January 1880, stating that he had completed several small models, and mentioning a small crown he had placed on Victoria's head. Nevertheless, in November, Boehm wrote apologising for his lack of progress. In June 1879, Victoria recorded in her journal that she had "sat to Böhm for a Bas Relief" and in August Ponsonby wrote to Fremantle that the head was done, leading the deputy master to become more involved in the project. There was no deadline for the commission, and Boehm throughout often put aside the portrait in favour of more pressing projects. Born in Austria, Boehm had trained as a medallist and had undertaken several sculptural commissions for the royal family. The queen, approaching her 60th birthday, no longer resembled her numismatic depiction and in February 1879, the private secretary to the queen, Sir Henry Ponsonby, informed the deputy master of the Royal Mint, Charles Fremantle, that Joseph Edgar Boehm had been engaged to produce a medallic likeness of the queen that could be adapted for coinage purposes. The 1877 Empress of India Medal depicts Victoria with a small crown.īy the late 1870s most denominations of British coins carried versions of the obverse design featuring Queen Victoria created by William Wyon and first introduced in 1838, the year after she acceded to the throne. A committee was created to consider replacements, and the Old Head coinage, with an obverse created by Thomas Brock, began to be struck in 1893. Royal Mint authorities began to consider replacing the Jubilee issue within a year of its release, and this may have been hastened by Boehm's death in 1890. The sixpence was gilded by fraudsters to pass as a half sovereign, and it was quickly withdrawn by the Royal Mint, which resumed its old reverse design (stating its value), slightly modified. They were criticised not only for the diminutive crown, but because the new reverse designs did not state the value of the coin. When the new coins were released in June 1887, they proved a popular souvenir of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. Some of the reverse designs for the coinage were changed at the same time, depicting heraldic imagery and engraved by Leonard Charles Wyon. The queen finally gave approval in early 1887, and the new coinage was prepared. Boehm gave only intermittent attention to the project, and it took years before it came to fruition. In 1879 Boehm was selected to create a new depiction of Victoria that could be adapted for the coinage – even though the queen marked her 60th birthday that year, some British coins still showed her as she appeared forty years previously. No bronze coins (the penny and its fractions) were struck with the Jubilee design.
#Coinage act series#
The series saw the entire issuance of the double florin (1887–1890) and, in 1888, the last issue for circulation of the groat, or fourpence piece, although it was intended for use in British Guiana. The depiction of Victoria wearing a crown that was seen as too small was widely mocked, and was replaced in 1893. The design was placed on the silver and gold circulating coinage beginning in 1887, and on the Maundy coinage beginning in 1888. The Jubilee coinage or Jubilee head coinage are British coins with an obverse featuring a depiction of Queen Victoria by Joseph Edgar Boehm. The five-pound piece of the Jubilee coinage, with the Saint George and the Dragon reverse by Benedetto Pistrucci
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