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- Available as a shaped $1 coin produced in Virenium
- Very low issue limit of 1,950
The Pobjoy Mint is thrilled to announce the fourth coin in our new series featuring ships connected to the British Virgin Islands.
The fourth coin in the collection features the mailing ship RMS Rhone, a British Royal Mail ship owned by the Royal Mail Steam Packet (RMSP) Company. The design on the coin shows the ship sailing in the foreground with the map of the British Virgin Islands in the background.
In June 1863, RMSP ordered the build of the RMS Rhone from the Millwall Iron Works on the Isle of Dogs, London, and her sister ship Douro from Caird & Company in Greenock. The pair were similar but not identical. Both were handsome ships, but Rhone was considered to have slightly finer lines.
Rhone was a sail-steamer ship, rigged as a two-masted brig but she was also an innovative ship. She had a bronze propeller, which was only the second-ever made of this alloy at the time. She also had a surface condenser in order to save and re-use water in her boilers and steam engine. She was the first ship so equipped to visit Brazil, so in port in 1865 the emperor of Brazil, Pedro II, came aboard and visited her engine room to see it.
RMSP ships carried mail, passengers, horses, and cargo on regularly scheduled routes. RMS Rhone’s first services had been between Southampton, England and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil until January 1867, when it was transferred to the Caribbean route, which at the time was more lucrative and prestigious.
After only 10 months of service in the Caribbean, Rhone was wrecked off the coast of Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands on October 29, 1867, in a hurricane. RMS Rhone is now a popular diving site, and the area around her was turned into a national park in 1980.
Rhone National Park has received a number of citations and awards over the years as one of the top recreational wreck dives in the Caribbean, both for its historical interest and teeming marine life, and also because of the open and relatively safe nature of the wreckage.
The coin is available in Virenium, a metal developed by Pobjoy Mint that is light gold in color.
This stunning coin will be presented in a Pobjoy Mint presentation pouch, with a special Collector’s Album to house all coins in this series. The obverse of the coin features an effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II produced exclusively by Pobjoy Mint.
Presentation
The Virenium $1 British Virgin Islands coin is offered in a capsule only. A special album and a presentation pop-in pack are available separately to house the coins.
Coin Specifications
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We’d love to hear your feedback, comments, and suggestions. You can call our sales line Toll Free at 1-877-4Pobjoy (1-877-476-2569) or visit our website www.pobjoy.com.
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