10 oz Queen's Virtues Silver Coin

The 10 oz Queen's Virtues Silver Coin

The Queen's Virtues is a six-design tribute series to Queen Elizabeth II issued as legal tender of Saint Helena, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic best known as the island of Napoleon's exile. The series comes from The East India Company, the modern London luxury and bullion brand that licenses the historical name, and draws its imagery from the six allegorical figures on the Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace: Victory, Truth, Charity, Justice, Courage, and Constancy.

This 10 oz version contains ten troy ounces (311.035 grams) of .999 fine silver, putting a large-format canvas behind sculptural designs that were conceived as monumental art in the first place. Coins at the 10 oz weight are uncommon in silver generally, and where they exist they carry collector premiums above the 10 oz silver bar alternatives at the same weight, so the buyer here is paying for design and limited-series appeal rather than cost efficiency.

The choice in practice comes down to positioning. The series carries genuine legal tender status and substantive collectible credentials, with limited mintages across the programme and a release window (2021-2023) that made it one of the last series to feature the Elizabeth II effigy before her death in September 2022. Buyers wanting the cheapest ten ounces of silver should look at bars; buyers wanting a commemorative series with sovereign backing get something bars do not offer.

10 oz Queen's Virtues Silver Specifications

The Queen's Virtues programme spans multiple metals and formats: 1 oz silver (.999, 38.61 mm, £1 face value), 5 oz silver, 1 oz gold (.9999, £100 face value), platinum in 1 oz and 1/10 oz (.9995), and a 10 oz format. Proof versions exist at tightly certified mintages of 2,500 for 1 oz silver and just 250 for 1 oz gold per design.

All designs share a common obverse, the Ian Rank-Broadley portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, with denomination, weight, and purity inscriptions. The reverses carry detailed relief work modelled on Sir Thomas Brock's Victoria Memorial sculptures, one virtue per design. The Saint Helena pound's direct 1:1 peg to sterling makes the face values across this series unusually meaningful for legal tender bullion, in contrast to the nominal denominations on many small-nation issues.

Queen's Virtues Silver Tax Treatment by Country

The single most important tax fact for this series concerns UK buyers: Saint Helena coins are legal tender of a British Overseas Territory, not of the United Kingdom, so they are not CGT-exempt in the UK. The CGT exemption applies only to UK legal tender coins such as the Britannia. UK dealers list these coins accordingly.

• UK: 20% VAT on new silver, and gains are subject to Capital Gains Tax above the £3,000 annual allowance. A silver Britannia pays the same VAT but escapes CGT.
• US: No federal sales tax; most states exempt bullion, some with thresholds a 10 oz coin will usually clear. Long-term gains are taxed at the collectibles rate of up to 28%.
• Canada: 0% GST/HST for silver at 99.9%+ purity, though coins with numismatic value above their metal content may not qualify.
• Australia: investment-grade silver at 99.9%+ purity is GST-free; numismatic and collector coins attract 10% GST.
• New Zealand: fine silver at 99.9%+ purity is GST-exempt; non-investment-grade items attract 15% GST.
• Singapore: the GST exemption for coins requires inclusion on the MAS-approved list; buyers should confirm classification with their dealer.
• Hong Kong: no sales tax, no duties, no capital gains tax.
• EU: new silver attracts full national VAT rates, typically 17-27%.

Six Virtues from the Victoria Memorial, 2021-2023

The series takes its subject from the Victoria Memorial, the monument outside Buckingham Palace designed and sculpted by Sir Thomas Brock (1847-1922) after Queen Victoria's death in 1901 and inaugurated by King George V in 1911, a decade in the making. Brock was knighted at the unveiling ceremony. The monument's six allegorical figures structure the coin programme: the winged Victory tops the memorial with Constancy, Charity, and Courage beneath her, and Justice and Truth are carved from marble blocks around the base.

The coins arrived over three years at roughly two designs per year. Victory opened the series (proof in October 2020, bullion in 2021) under the motto Victory Through Harmony, followed by Truth (Truth Conquers All), then Charity, Justice (Let Justice Be Done), and Courage (By Wisdom and Courage) through 2022, with Constancy completing the set in spring 2023. The Justice design pairs a winged angel bearing a sword with a child carrying the scales of justice.

Timing gave the series unintended historical weight: it was conceived as a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and became one of the last programmes to carry her Ian Rank-Broadley effigy before her death in September 2022. The East India Company behind the series is a modern luxury enterprise founded by Sanjiv Mehta in 2010, with no operational continuity with the historical trading company dissolved in 1874; the name is licensed, and the brand has become the primary force behind recent Saint Helena coin programmes alongside issues like Una and the Lion.

Queen's Virtues vs Britannia and Queen's Beasts

Against the silver Britannia, the comparison turns on tax and recognition. Both share .999-class purity and legal tender status, but the Britannia is UK legal tender, CGT-exempt for UK investors, globally recognised, and struck without mintage limits. The Queen's Virtues offers limited mintages and collectible positioning instead. For a UK investor optimising after-tax returns, the Britannia wins; for a collector wanting a complete six-design tribute set, the Virtues series is the draw.

Against the Royal Mint's Queen's Beasts (2016-2021), the parallel is closer: both are multi-coin series with symbolic or heraldic themes, released over several years, and both built strong followings. The Queen's Beasts ran to ten designs with UK legal tender status and CGT exemption, at higher mintages; the Queen's Virtues runs to six designs on Saint Helena legal tender, without the UK tax advantages but at lower mintages. The two programmes overlapped at the Virtues' 2021 launch, and buyers of one frequently cross-shop the other.

Against 10 oz silver bars, the trade is simple cost versus character. Bars at this weight trade close to spot and exist purely to accumulate metal; a 10 oz coin from a limited series carries a collector premium on entry that may or may not be recovered on resale. The same East India Company programme also issued a 10 oz bar format, which sits closer to the bullion end of that spectrum.