Big Ben 1oz Silver Coin | Landmarks of Britain

Big Ben 1oz silver coin

The Big Ben 1oz Silver coin is the first in a new Royal Mint series celebrating various well-known British landmarks. This is a bullion finish coin, issued by the Royal Mint.

This unique collector’s coin is 1oz in weight of 999 purity silver. The Big Ben depiction itself is designed by the Royal Mint’s Glyn Davies and Laura Clancy.

With a face value of £2, the coin qualifies as legal tender and is therefore Capital Gains Tax free. For this reason, we expect it to be just as popular as the other limited issue UK silver coins such as the Lunar series and the Queen’s Beast range. Despite its increased premium to the more established silver collector’s coins, the low mintage of 50,000 will mean they’ll sell out quickly. Especially with Tax free silver demand within the UK and collectors demand from Asia.

At present, the Royal Mint hasn’t issued details of how many landmarks will be celebrated in total but upcoming issues will feature Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palance and Trafalgar Square.

History of Big Ben

A decade after the Palace of Westminster’s destruction to fire in 1834, plans for a new parliament building including a clock tower were made. After the initial bell cracked, it was melted down and recast in 1858.

While Big Ben is one of London and the UK’s most recognised landmarks, most people mistakenly think the tower itself is called Big Ben. In reality, the 96-metre tall tower is actually called The Elizabeth Tower and sits at the north hand of the Houses of Parliament on London’s river Thames. Infact, it is the giant bell inside the clock tower, weighing a mammoth 13.7 tons which has the name Big Ben, probably named after Sir Benjamin Hall, an overweight character who first commissioned the clock tower. However, there are conflicting theories, the other most common being that the bell was named after the heavyweight boxing champion at the time, Benjamin Caunt.

Each of the 4 clock faces span 7 metres in diameter, contain 312 pieces of glass and illuminate at night.