1935 King George V silver proof Crown with raised edge lette...

Hammer

£650

1935 King George V silver proof Crown with raised edge lettering in original box (S 4048, Bull 3655; ESC 378). Obverse: bare head portrait of King George V, facing left by Sir Edgar Bertram Mackennal. Legend: 'GEORGIVS V. DG. BRITT: OMN: REX. FD. IND: IMP:'. Reverse: Saint George mounted on rearing horse over cowering dragon. 'CROWN 1935' above. Artist: Percy Metcalfe. Edge: raised lettering reading: '* DECUS ET TUTAMEN * ANNO REGNI XXV'. Comes in the original Royal Mint card box of issue. Mintage: 2,500. Composition: 925 silver. Weight: 28.28g. Diameter: 38.61 millimetres.1935 marked King George's Silver Jubilee. The Royal Mint celebrated 25 years of his reign with a special commemorative Crown, an ancestor to today's collectable Five Pound coins. These Jubilee Crowns feature an Art Deco-inspired reverse, a modernist reinterpretation of the classic St George and the dragon motif. The saint's warhorse looks a little like a child's rocking horse, leading some collectors to refer to these 1935 coins as 'Rocking Horse Crowns'. This iconic design is the work of English artist and sculptor, Percy Metcalfe, who also designed the first coinage of the Irish Free State. The standard .500 silver 1935 Crown is fairly common but proof versions, struck in .925 sterling silver, were also offered by The Royal Mint, including about 2,500 that bear raised edge lettering, rather than the standard incuse engraving. The edge bears the classic 'DECUS ET TUTAMEN' lettering ('an ornament and a safeguard') as well as the regnal year that the coin was struck in: 'XXV' (25). The regnal year is the year of the reign of a monarch. It was common on earlier Crown coins to stamp the regnal year on the edge as a security feature to discourage the edge of the coin from being clipped off to salvage scrap metal.