The design is a banger. On one side, you get King George V. He looks stern. He looks like he just smelled a bad egg. His beard is immaculate.
Flip it over. There’s a knight on horseback. He’s charging. He’s holding a sword. The detail is so sharp, you can count the horse’s eyelashes.
Here’s the funny part. The knight is St. George. He’s slaying a dragon. During the real war, soldiers were killing each other with machine guns. But the coin shows a guy with a sword fighting a mythical lizard. Peak irony.
A Weighty Problem
This coin is heavy. It weighs 16 grams. That’s more than a whole Hershey’s kiss. Try carrying four of these in your pocket. Your trousers would fall down.
And it’s almost pure gold. 91.67% pure. That’s 22 carats. It’s so dense, you could probably use it as a paperweight for a telephone book.
Royal Mint unveils 2016 commemorative coins
During the war, people didn’t carry these. They were too valuable. A single £2 coin in 1914 could buy a tailored wool suit. Today, that’s roughly £300 of buying power.
