1 oz Queen's Virtues Silver Coin

The 1 oz Queen's Virtues Silver Coin

The Queen's Virtues is a six-coin tribute series to Queen Elizabeth II, issued as legal tender of Saint Helena and produced under the East India Company brand. Its designs are drawn from the six allegorical figures on the Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace, sculpted by Sir Thomas Brock: Victory, Truth, Charity, Justice, Courage, and Constancy. The series ran from 2021 to 2023 at roughly two coins per year, which makes it a complete, closed set rather than an open-ended bullion programme, and that finite run is its main appeal. Buyers are not just stacking silver; they are assembling six related designs that will never be added to.

Each 1 oz coin is struck in .999 fine silver in Brilliant Uncirculated finish with a face value of one pound. The Saint Helena pound is pegged 1:1 to sterling, an unusual arrangement that makes the face value more meaningful than the token denominations on many small-nation issues. The common obverse carries Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of Elizabeth II, making this one of the last series to feature her effigy before her death in September 2022.

For a buyer choosing between this and a mainstream sovereign coin, the trade is straightforward. A 1 oz silver Britannia offers global recognition, unlimited mintage, and UK CGT exemption; the Queen's Virtues offers a limited, collectible series with sculptural designs and a closed run. The series also extends to gold and platinum versions, plus 5 oz silver coins and a 10 oz bar format.

Queen's Virtues 1 oz Silver Specifications

The six reverses follow Brock's memorial figures. Victory, the winged angel that tops the monument, opened the series with the motto "Victory Through Harmony". Truth followed with "Truth Conquers All", then Charity, Justice (a winged angel with sword, accompanied by a child carrying the scales, inscribed "Let Justice Be Done"), Courage ("By Wisdom and Courage"), and finally Constancy in spring 2023.

Beyond the bullion-finish 1 oz silver, the programme includes 1 oz gold (.9999), 1 oz and 1/10 oz platinum (.9995), 5 oz silver, and a 10 oz silver bar. Proof versions carry certified limited mintages of 2,500 for the 1 oz silver and just 250 for the 1 oz gold, with sequential numbering, tamper-evident packaging, and certificates of authenticity.

Queen's Virtues Silver Tax Position

The single most important tax fact about this series concerns UK buyers, and it is easy to get wrong. Saint Helena is a British Overseas Territory, but its coins are not UK legal tender, so the Queen's Virtues is not CGT-exempt in the UK. CGT exemption applies only to UK legal tender coins such as Britannias and Sovereigns. UK dealers list these coins explicitly as not CGT exempt.

• UK: As new silver, the coin attracts 20% VAT on purchase, and gains on disposal are within the scope of CGT at the individual's rate. Pre-owned examples may be available under the margin scheme, where VAT is charged only on the dealer's margin.
• US: No federal sales tax; roughly 35 states exempt bullion and several apply purchase thresholds. The .999 fineness meets the IRS 99.9% silver requirement, though IRA acceptance depends on the custodian, and limited-mintage proof versions may be treated as collectibles. Long-term gains are taxed at the collectibles rate of up to 28%.
• Canada: A legal tender silver coin at 99.9%+ purity is GST/HST exempt under the federal rule.
• Australia and New Zealand: Investment-grade silver of at least 99.9% purity is GST-free in both countries.
• EU: Silver coins attract full national VAT rates (17-27%); the investment gold exemption applies only to the gold versions of this series.
• Singapore and Hong Kong: Qualifying silver is GST-free in Singapore under the IPM scheme; Hong Kong levies no sales tax or CGT at all.

From the Victoria Memorial to Saint Helena

The series translates one of London's most prominent monuments into coinage. The Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace was designed and sculpted by Sir Thomas Brock (1847-1922) after Queen Victoria's death in 1901, and was inaugurated a decade later, in 1911, by King George V, who knighted Brock at the unveiling. On the monument, the winged figure of Victory stands at the top with Constancy, Charity, and Courage beneath her, while Justice and Truth are carved from marble blocks around the base. The coin series repurposes those six Victorian allegories as a tribute to Elizabeth II.

The issuing brand deserves a footnote. The "East India Company" behind the series is a modern London-headquartered luxury goods and bullion brand founded by Sanjiv Mehta in 2010, with the name licensed from the UK Treasury. It has no operational continuity with the historical trading company dissolved in 1874. Saint Helena, the issuing territory, is the remote South Atlantic island best known as the place of Napoleon's exile from 1815 to 1821, and has hosted several recent coin programmes including Una and the Lion alongside the Queen's Virtues.

Timing gave the series unintended poignancy: it was among the last to carry the Elizabeth II effigy before her death in September 2022, with the final Constancy coin arriving in spring 2023.

Queen's Virtues vs Britannia and Queen's Beasts

Against the Silver Britannia, the Royal Mint's flagship, the comparison turns almost entirely on tax and liquidity for UK buyers. The Britannia is UK legal tender and therefore CGT-exempt; the Queen's Virtues is not. The Britannia is struck without mintage limits and recognised by every dealer worldwide, while the Queen's Virtues trades on scarcity and collectible positioning. A UK investor optimising for after-tax returns should hold Britannias; a collector drawn to the closed six-coin set and the Victoria Memorial sculptures is the natural Queen's Virtues buyer.

The closest thematic rival is the Royal Mint's Queen's Beasts series, which ran from 2016 to 2021 and overlapped with the Queen's Virtues launch. Both are finite multi-coin series built on symbolic British imagery. The Queen's Beasts offers ten heraldic designs, UK legal tender status with CGT exemption, and higher mintages; the Queen's Virtues offers six allegorical designs at lower mintage without the UK tax advantages. Collectors who completed the Beasts series were an obvious audience for this follow-on.

Within Saint Helena's own output, the island has issued multiple series under third-party production, including Una and the Lion and the Goddess series, with the East India Company brand behind most recent programmes. Among those, the Queen's Virtues stands out for its direct link to a physical London monument and its compact, completable six-coin structure.