2001 Royal Visit .999 Silver Proof Coin

2001 Royal Visit .999 Silver Proof Coin, comes in a beautiful case with the proof of certificate.

Denomination: $5
Composition and finish: Pure silver proof 0.999

Weight: 28.28 grams
Edge treatment: Milled

Mintage: 1,800

For those New Zealanders old enough to have experienced it, the visit of the young Queen and her dashing husband, Prince Philip, to New Zealand in the summer of 1953-54, is a never-to-be forgotten event.

Those who were children at the time recall the BIG Day, marked for months in the calendar, when they dressed in their posh clothes, pinned a royal tour medallion to their chests, collected a butter box to stand on,

a Union Jack to wave, and perhaps a periscope to look through, and set out to ‘see’ the Queen.

Perhaps three in every four New Zealanders did see her, as the Queen visited 46 towns or cities and attended 110 separate functions.

One woman saw her 30 times. Crowds would turn up hours before and wait patiently for the split second when she drove past. 

At Tirau, a community of 600 people, there was a crowd of 10,000. At the Ellerslie and Trentham races, crowds turned their backs on the horses to gawk at the royal box. People went to extraordinary lengths to show their devotion.

Sheep were dyed in the patriotic colors of red, white and blue; in New Plymouth both bowling club members and the local pony club formed into an E on the ground. 

Screens were erected to hide unsightly buildings, and citizens were instructed when and how to plant blue lobelias, red salvias and white begonias.

 Hardly a car did not sport a Union Jack, hardly a building in the main cities was not covered in bunting and flowers during the day and electric lights at night. 

This was truly a remarkable event. The Republican Movement has criticized the postponement of Queen Elizabeth’s 2001 Royal visit to New Zealand as an example of our head of state’s lack of interest in New Zealand.

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were to have arrived in two weeks time, but have postponed their visit because of the postponement of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Brisbane.

Republican Movement president Dave Guerin said the postponement of what would have been the Queen’s 10th visit to New Zealand demonstrated that she saw New Zealand and her “subjects” here as irrelevant. 

“This visit was seen as a consolation prize for the dwindling numbers of New Zealand monarchists who were upset that the Queen failed to make it across the Tasman after her visit to Australia last year. 

Now she has let those few Union Jack-waving loyalists down again.