Description
The first King Charles III gold maundy issue
The first Gold Maundy Set has been produced in King Charles III’s reign. The set, dated 2023, has been produced in gold – not silver as is customary – to mark his Coronation year. If you don’t know the history of Maundy coins then there is more about this below, but they have a rich historical significance dating back many hundreds of years.
A summary of the benefits of this set:
- The first Gold Maundy Set in the reign of King Charles III has just been produced and, dated 2023, it marks the year of his Coronation. This is an important ‘first’ and there is no way of knowing when, or indeed if, a gold Maundy Set will ever again be produced in this monarch’s reign. (In the 70 year reign of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, there were only ever two occasions that gold Maundy Sets were made available).
- Maundy coins are deeply historic: they have been produced for use of the monarch at the ceremony on Maundy Thursday (just before Easter) as gifts to deserving recipients, and only rarely are they made available to people outside this ceremony.
- A set of Maundy coins is made up of four coins: an 18mm diameter fourpence, a 16mm diameter threepence, a 14mm diameter twopence, and an 11mm diameter penny. Almost always produced in silver they are, on very rare occasions, produced as commemoratives in gold.
- The reverse design on the 2023 King Charles III Gold Maundy Set is a series of interlocking ‘C’s and this has a direct link with the Maundy coins of his namesake, King Charles II.
- Mintage is incredibly limited, at just 299 sets worldwide
What is special about ‘Maundy’ coins?
Maundy coins are produced mainly for use by the monarch in the Maundy ceremony on the Thursday before Easter. There began a custom of the monarch giving gifts of clothing and food to needy recipients at this ceremony each year and, in turn this evolved into the giving of money instead.
During the reign of King Charles II, coins were struck specially for the use of the monarch in this ceremony. Most recipients spent the monetary gift and so the coins were small values to enable them to be easily spent: a fourpence, threepence, twopence and penny. These coins were the same size and value as coins being put into circulation, but as time moved on, they began not to be produced for general use and became coins that were only made for the Maundy ceremony.
This is how the Maundy Set evolved: four relatively small silver coins of face values of fourpence, threepence, twopence and penny. They are for use by the monarch in the Maundy ceremony, and have also been presented to others involved in the ceremony, and on just a handful of occasions – such as now – have been produced by different issuing authorities and in other metals such as gold to mark deeply significant royal events.
Minted in solid 24 carat gold to celebrate the reign of a new monarch
Maundy tradition has a very close connection with the monarch, and Maundy coins were originally minted to enable the monarch to distribute gifts of money. This strong connection remains today.
Maundy coins have historically been produced in silver. Even in 1947 when Britain’s circulating silver coinage had all the silver removed, and became minted from cupronickel, the Maundy coins continued to be produced from silver. So why, now, do we have a set of Maundy coins before us, in gold?
On a handful of occasions sets of Maundy coins have been produced in gold. Although these gold Maundy Sets have never been part of the service on Maundy Thursday, or the monarch’s gift to recipients, they have been produced to celebrate incredibly significant Royal events. Maundy coins have a very close relationship with the monarch and so they make an equally significant commemoration of events that have great significance to the monarch.
That is why we have this set before us now. This has been produced to mark the Coronation year – 2023 – of our new king, Charles III. We don’t know when – or if – there will ever again be a gold Maundy set released in his reign – but what we DO know is that the set before us now will always be THE FIRST.
Mintage of just 299
It’s difficult to know just how significant demand may be for a set of this calibre. After all, it’s the very first of its kind in the reign of King Charles III. We do know that the very first gold Maundy set of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, which was produced in the year 2002 for her Golden Jubilee, had a mintage of 2,002 sets. That’s more than six times as many sets as are available now, for this new 2023 King Charles III set!
