Queen Vic £5 is sold for record £1m in US
THE “finest example” of a rare Queen Victoria coin has sold for a record-breaking £1.06million.
The 1839 Victoria Una and the Lion gold £5 depicts the 20-year-old monarch, who had ascended to the throne two years earlier, leading a lion representing the British Empire.
The other side bears a portrait of Victoria. Only 400 were struck.
Trophy
The coin was created by William Wyon, chief engraver at the Royal Mint from 1828 until he died in 1851.
Una represents Truth in the Elizabethan poem The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser.
The coin was sold by a collector via Heritage Auctions, of Dallas, Texas, for almost double its £600,000 estimate. It easily beat the £889,000 achieved by another example at a sale in Monaco last October. A Heritage spokesman said the Una and the Lion is an iconic British piece, “a ‘trophy coin’ that a lot of collectors seek.
“Demand is always very high when they come to market. This is the finest example.”
The British coin record price is the £1.65million paid for a 1937 Edward VIII £5 pattern coin in Dallas in March.