1 oz Tudor Beasts Platinum Coin

Tudor Beasts Platinum: The Royal Mint's Current Heraldic Series

The 1 oz Tudor Beasts Platinum Coin is part of The Royal Mint's ongoing ten-coin series (2022-2026), the direct successor to the popular Queen's Beasts programme that concluded in 2021. The Tudor Beasts draws its designs from the King's Beasts stone statues on the Moat Bridge of Hampton Court Palace, originally placed by Henry VIII after acquiring the palace from Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in the 1530s. All reverses are designed by David Lawrence, with two new beast designs released each year.

The coin is struck to 999.5 fine platinum with a face value of £100 GBP. As UK legal tender, it carries CGT exemption for British residents, one of the few platinum coins in the world that offers this benefit. For UK investors, the Tudor Beasts stands alongside the Platinum Britannia and the completed Queen's Beasts as the only CGT-exempt platinum options.

The series straddles a unique historical transition: coins from 2022 bear the Jody Clark portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, while those from 2023 onwards carry the Martin Jennings portrait of King Charles III. Some collectors seek matched pairs of both portrait variants for each beast design.

Compared to the Queen's Beasts, the Tudor Beasts adds a 1 oz silver bullion format (the Queen's Beasts standardised on 2 oz for silver) and features 999.9 silver purity, higher than the Britannia's 999. The platinum specification is identical across all Royal Mint series at 999.5 fineness. For buyers who missed the Queen's Beasts or want a currently available CGT-exempt heraldic platinum coin, the Tudor Beasts fills that role while the programme remains active.

Tudor Beasts Platinum Coin Specifications

The Ten Tudor Beasts

Security Features

All Tudor Beasts bullion coins feature a guilloche patterned background, a geometric lattice pattern in the background field that serves as both an aesthetic element and a counterfeiting deterrent. This is the same security approach used on the Queen's Beasts from 2018. The four-feature security suite (surface animation, latent image, tincture lines, micro-text) remains exclusive to the Britannia series and is not applied to the Tudor Beasts.

Tudor Beasts Platinum Tax Treatment by Country

The Tudor Beasts' UK legal tender status gives it a specific tax advantage that most platinum coins lack. Outside the UK, it follows standard platinum tax rules.

United Kingdom

As UK legal tender, all Tudor Beasts coins (gold, silver, and platinum) are CGT-exempt for UK residents. This is a significant benefit for platinum, where the 20% VAT on purchase means that CGT exemption on disposal is the only available tax relief. The Platinum Tudor Beasts shares this exemption with the Platinum Britannia and the completed Queen's Beasts. Platinum still carries 20% VAT on purchase, regardless of the coin.

United States

The Tudor Beasts Platinum is not IRA-eligible. It is not on the IRS approved list for precious metals retirement accounts. Capital gains are taxed at the collectibles rate of up to 28%. Most states exempt investment-grade bullion from sales tax.

European Union

Platinum is subject to standard VAT across the EU (17-27%). No investment platinum exemption exists equivalent to the EU Investment Gold Directive. The margin scheme may apply to pre-owned Tudor Beasts in some countries.

Canada

Platinum at 99.5% purity or above is GST/HST-exempt. The Tudor Beasts qualifies. Capital gains are taxed at a 50% inclusion rate.

Australia and New Zealand

Both countries exempt platinum at 99% purity or above from GST. The Tudor Beasts qualifies. Australia applies CGT with a 50% discount for holdings over 12 months. New Zealand has no CGT.

Singapore and Hong Kong

Singapore exempts qualifying platinum from 9% GST. Hong Kong has no sales tax, duties, or CGT. Both are fully favourable for platinum purchases.

Hampton Court's Beasts on Modern Platinum

Hampton Court Palace, located on the Thames west of London, was built by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey beginning in 1514 and was one of the grandest palaces in Tudor England. When Wolsey fell from favour in 1529, he gave the palace to Henry VIII, who expanded it substantially. Henry added the Moat Bridge (also called the Great Gatehouse Bridge), placing ten heraldic beast statues along its balustrade to display the dynastic lineage that legitimised Tudor rule.

The original 16th-century statues deteriorated over the centuries. The current statues on the Moat Bridge are 20th-century replicas carved by Joseph Cribb in the 1930s, commissioned as part of the palace's restoration programme. These modern replicas are the direct source material for The Royal Mint's coin designs.

David Lawrence, an illustrator and sculptor with more than 30 years of experience, designed all ten Tudor Beasts reverses. Each depicts a heraldic beast in a dynamic pose, holding a shield bearing Tudor-era heraldic arms. The designs are more detailed and animated than the Queen's Beasts' cleaner heraldic style, reflecting the difference between coronation formality and Tudor dynamism.

The series launched in 2022 with the Seymour Panther and Lion of England, and it runs through 2026 with two designs per year. The obverse transitioned from Elizabeth II (Jody Clark portrait) to Charles III (Martin Jennings portrait) in 2023, creating a unique numismatic record of the transition between monarchs within a single bullion series. If the Queen's Beasts precedent holds, a Completer Coin featuring all ten beasts is likely after the final 2026 releases.

The Tudor Beasts runs concurrently with the Britannia, and The Royal Mint positions them differently: the Britannia serves core bullion demand with maximum liquidity, while the Tudor Beasts targets the collector-investor crossover market, where buyers want both metal value and collectible appeal.

Tudor Beasts vs Queen's Beasts, Britannia, and Philharmonic

The Tudor Beasts competes most directly with other Royal Mint platinum products and the continental European alternative.

The Tudor Beasts and Queen's Beasts share the same DNA: Royal Mint heraldic series with ten designs, guilloche security, CGT exemption, and a five-year production window. The key difference is availability. The Queen's Beasts is complete and its supply is fixed, which may support premium appreciation as the secondary market tightens. The Tudor Beasts is currently available at bullion premiums, offering the same tax treatment without the collector premium of a concluded series.

The Britannia is the simpler CGT-exempt option for UK investors who want platinum without collecting a specific series. It has annual production, wider dealer availability, and slightly larger market recognition internationally. The Tudor Beasts offers the added dimension of a collectible series format for buyers who enjoy assembling a complete set.

The Philharmonic competes on premium rather than tax. It typically trades at lower premiums than any Royal Mint platinum coin and has strong distribution in Europe. For non-UK buyers, the Philharmonic's competitive pricing and cultural design make it a practical choice. For UK residents, the Tudor Beasts' CGT exemption more than offsets any premium difference on gains above the £3,000 annual allowance.