The Royal Mint has released a new coloured £5 coin to mark 120 years since Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit first hit the shelves.
The famous rabbit is depicted in his trademark blue coat hopping through a wildflower meadow on the commemorative piece launching today.
Ffion Gwillim, who designed the coin, said she used the original storybook illustrations as her reference to create the “cheerful and celebratory” scene.
The new coin is available on the Royal Mint website in gold and silver as well as a “brilliant uncirculated” edition. It will not enter circulation.
READ MORE: Inspired by Disney, The Royal Mint unveils new Eeyore 50p coin
Speaking about the design, Ms Gwillim said: “As the coin is a celebration of The Tale Of Peter Rabbit, I knew from the beginning that I wanted the coin to be cheerful and have a celebratory feel.
“I took inspiration from the colourful floral illustrations seen throughout the book.
“Taking the different floral elements from pages in the book to create a new scene on a round coin was a welcomed design challenge – applying colour to such a detailed coin also took a lot of care and precision.”
Royal Mint director of commemorative coin Clare Maclennan said: “Coins remain Britain’s favourite collectable item.
“Their appeal continues to reach new collectors with the increasing popularity of our childhood character coins, which celebrate some of the greatest childhood stories and characters we know and love on official UK coin.
“The collectable Peter Rabbit £5 crown is the latest release in the series, marking the 120th anniversary of the mischievous, loveable rabbit.
“Inspired by the original watercolour illustrations, and available in a vibrant special colour edition, the coin is itself a beautiful work of art for collectors of all ages, and we’re so thrilled to see these pieces are inspiring new and younger collectors to get involved.”
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 hereComments are closed on this article