Jubilee coinage

The sixpence was gilded by fraudsters to pass as a half sovereign, and it was quickly withdrawn by the Royal Mint, which resumed its old reverse design (stating its value), slightly modified.

Royal Mint authorities began to consider replacing the Jubilee issue within a year of its release, and this may have been hastened by Boehm's death in 1890.

By the late 1870s, most denominations of British coins carried versions of the obverse design featuring Queen Victoria created by William Wyon and first introduced in 1838, the year after she acceded to the throne at the age of 18.

In June 1879 Victoria recorded in her journal that she had "sat to Böhm for a Bas Relief" and in August Ponsonby wrote to Fremantle that the head was done, leading the deputy master to become more involved in the project.

Although this would be similar in style to the 1877 Empress of India Medal, Fremantle was dubious about the headgear and wrote to Charles Francis Keary at the British Museum asking if there was precedent in numismatics for this.

Keary replied that "in the case of Greek coins I need not add the crowns are put on as if meant to be worn and not to tumble off at the slightest movement".

Victoria sat for Boehm again on 28 February, and work had advanced to the point where Fremantle suggested having the Royal Mint's modeller and engraver, Leonard Charles Wyon (William's son) prepare steel coinage dies.

In August 1884 Fremantle had the chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Childers, show a pattern half crown to Victoria, who considered it a good likeness but criticised the fall of the veil on the coin, and stated that she preferred the existing coinage.

They were then taken to be approved by Victoria, who gave her consent, though her hope that the coins bear some indication of the jubilee was resisted by Fremantle, who wished to have dies sent in the next post to the Australian branch mints.

[6] Nevertheless, it quickly became controversial; as the numismatic authors, G. P. Dyer and P. P. Gaspar wrote in A New History of the Royal Mint, "the Boehm portrait, with its tiny crown in danger of tumbling off the back of the queen's head, attracted most criticism".

[5] Kevin Clancy, in his history of the sovereign coin, stated: The presence of a small crown, which Victoria was actually fond of wearing, has often been cited as the chief flaw in the composition, but it was not the only weak link.

Boehm, an accomplished sculptor, may have intended a faithful likeness but the elements of crown, widow's veil and extended truncation, drew attention to Victoria's pointed profile.

[9] Richard Lobel, in Coincraft's Standard Catalogue of English and UK Coins, said that "the small crown placed on the back of the queen's head made her look a bit foolish".

[10] André Celtel and Svein H. Gullbekk, in their book on the sovereign and its antecedents, describe the Jubilee head as "perhaps the least flattering of Victoria's coin portraits, presenting a middle-aged rather jowly looking queen wearing a disproportionately small crown on top of her widow's veil".

"[13] Leonard Forrer wrote, "Unfortunately, his head of Queen Victoria was so much wanting in artistic merit, that it was severely criticised by all experts, and never gained favour with the public.

[17] In 1873, soon after he had assumed the deputy mastership, Fremantle had secured the return of Benedetto Pistrucci's 1817 design of Saint George and the Dragon to the sovereign,[16] for the first time in almost half a century.

[12] On 12 May 1887, Fremantle officially announced that there would be changes to the gold and silver coinage, including the introduction of a double florin, and an Order in Council to that effect was printed in The London Gazette on 17 May.

Later that month, the Annual Report of the Deputy Master of the Mint contained engravings of the new issue;[22] The Ipswich Journal opined on 10 June that "I think that when they are in circulation the public will admit they [the new coins] are a distinct artistic advance on the majority of those at present in use".

It was some storm: questions in parliament, outspoken criticism from all sections of the press, derisive cartoons and doggerel in Fun and Punch, and even some unfriendly comment by John Evans in his presidential address to the Numismatic Society.

The bust of the Queen with the crown toppling off the back of her head is not conducive to artistic merit [...] the smaller silver coins bear no record of their value, which is another drawback.

We have many die-sinkers in Birmingham who would have been ashamed to turn them out; and if the Mint can do nothing better, some of our own medalists might well be permitted to try their hands, with the certain result of redeeming the credit of the national coinage [...] unless a change is made sixpences will be electro-gilt and passed off as half-sovereigns by wholesale, for there is no appreciable difference between the two coins, either in weight or appearance [...] the worst thing of all about the coinage is, however, the portrait of the Queen; which is neither valuable as an accurate representation of Her Majesty, nor dignified if it is to be taken as an idealised effigy; while the odd-looking little crown, which seems to be falling off, renders the portrait absolutely ludicrous.

Edward Poynter, opening an art exhibition in South Kensington on 28 July, stated, "The head was modelled by Mr Boehm, and making all allowance for the necessity of pleasing an illustrious patron, that may have led Mr Boehm to accept such structural absurdities as the toy crown and the straight veil, it was difficult to believe that a sculptor of his eminence should have turned out such a thoroughly bad work.

"[39] Lewis Foreman Day criticised the new coins in The Magazine of Art, "British sculptors are justly aggrieved when a production is put forth, presumably as the best we can do, when they themselves know it to be very far from representing the standard of national design, and it aggravates their grievance to think that the favoured artist bears not even an English name".

The chancellor told MPs that Royal Mint officials preferred artistic designs from past times for the coinage rather than text stating their values.

Before the end of the year, the Royal Mint had resumed production of the sixpence's former design, with a crowned wreath surrounding the words SIX PENCE, though paired with Boehm's Jubilee head obverse.

[49] Goschen wrote to Ponsonby in September 1889, "As the general discussion on the Jubilee coinage had subsided, and the public appeared to have got used to the new coin, I thought that it might possibly be best to let the matter rest for a while.

Disliked because they were the same diameter (though somewhat thicker) than the threepenny bit, they retained some popularity in Scotland, and circulated in British Guiana as the equivalent of a quarter guilder.

Anecdotes of losses sustained by publicans and their help, who accepted the double florin under the misapprehension it was a five-shilling piece, led to it being dubbed the "Barmaid's Ruin".

[15][56] The death of Boehm in December 1890 set the Royal Mint free to consider replacement designs without being concerned about grieving the queen's favourite sculptor, and in February 1891, Goschen appointed a Committee on the Design of Coins with Sir John Lubbock as chairman, and including Fremantle and such notables as Sir Frederic Leighton, president of the Royal Academy.