The East India Company, which produced the luxury commemorative coin, valued it at “approximately $23 million”.
Introduced on Monday, days before the first anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s death, the commemorative coin is not considered a legal tender in the UK as a whole.
The current Guinness World Record for the most expensive coin ever sold at auction belongs to a rare 1933 US “Double Eagle” that brought in $18.9 million at Sotheby’s New York in June 2021.
The coin is over 24 inches in diameter. This makes it wider than an NBA-regulated basketball, and its design consists of nearly a dozen 24-carat gold coins set in diamond beds.
The central coin weighs about 1 kilo, while the smaller ones around it weigh 30 grams each and contain portraits or depictions of the deceased monarch.