The Royal Mint has produced its first ever £50 coin which also has a face value for the same amount.
The fine silver coin has been launched to celebrate the year that the Queen became the nation's longest-reigning monarch.
The Royal Mint, whose history of producing British coinage goes back more than 1,000 years, said that this is the first time it has issued a £50 coin which also has a face value of £50.
Unusually for a coin from the Mint, the portraits on both sides of the coin are by the same artist - 33-year old Royal Mint engraver Jody Clark.
Clark designed the fifth definitive portrait of the Queen to appear on circulating coins since her accession to the throne in 1952. The portrait of the Queen started to appear on coins from March. It has been paired with his contemporary image of Britannia to appear on the new £50 commemorative coin.
The coin is being made available to buy on the Mint's website and 100,000 of the coins will be minted.
The first coin in the Royal Mint's "face value" range - a £20 for £20 coin marking the birth of Prince George - sold out within days. Also in the range, a £100 coin featuring Big Ben also sold out within days.
The Queen is now considered to be the longest reigning monarch in British history, having surpassed her great-grandmother Queen Victoria's record. The milestone was reached in September.
Clark said: "Having my portrait of the Queen selected for Britain's coinage was an incredible experience, but now, seeing the portrait combined with my Britannia design on the UK's new £50 coin is a double honour."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here