Give him some shoulders!

[Chris Perkins]

http://www.awardmedals.com/award/churchill.htm

It actually looks better with shoulders doesn't it. I don't think i'd want to spend £200 on it though!

By the way, does anyone know who designed the Churchill head on the Crown? It looks like it might be based on an oil painting....I'd like to put details in CCGB2006.

[Sylvester]

That's closely guarded mint secret, basically to protect the designer from assasination.

Honestly i don't know, but i've often wondered.

[Chris Perkins]

Yes, they're keeping a low profile aren't they! I bet it was from a bust or a painting and probably just miniaturised by a mint employee.

[Sylvester]

That's generally my feelings on the matter. Although it could be from a photograph or a painting, i believe this is how Mary Gillick came up with her Elizabeth II obverse.

There is a very slim possibility it could have been Mary Gillick's work however she died in 1965... which would kinda fit in with my theory above. Someone took the criticism too far...

Are there no initials on the reverse of the Crown? Could but Fuller and Thomas' work, as they designed the 1953 and 1960 crown. But if they were the ones responsible for the Churchie then they were wise to keep quiet about it.

[Chris Perkins]

There are no initials, I think it would look better with initials, they'd break the monotony!

The '53 and '60 reverses are actually pretty good and nothing like the Churchill. I doubt it was Fuller and Thomas.

Maybe they just got a thick oil painting with high relief, cut out a circle of it and got the reducing machine to cut the die!

[Sylvester]

Oww i know, it was Raphael Maklouf's really early work...

Now why am i thinking Edward VIII

[mint_mark]

I found it

In English Silver Coinage at the end of the chaper "History of Milled Coinage" it says "the reverse shows the head of Churchill by the sculptor Oscar Nemon and the inscription CHURCHILL; the edge is grained."

Furthermore, Oscar Nemon appears in the list of designers at the start of the Elizabeth II chapter in Coins of England and the United Kingdom.

If you try google you can find pictures of the sculpture...

[Chris Perkins]

Knew i'd read that name somewhere. The bust looks perfectly ok in proper 3d form doesn't it.

Mr Nemon is not responsible for the awful coin, it's whoever decided to make a mini profile version of the perfectly respectable bust that's to blame!

[Geordie582]

It's a pity the coin is so poor as the first to show a commoner. It's the only one I'd reccomend enamelling!