October 20, 2016 – In 2016 William Shakespeare celebrated the 400th anniversary of his death. On this occasion Coin Invest Trust created a gold coin with one of the famous portraits of the eternal poet by artist Droeshout. The coin renders the portrait in unseen sharpness of detail.
Cook Islands / 5 Dollars / Gold .9999 / 0.5 g / 11 mm / Mintage: 15,000.
Visible on the obverse is the Ian Rank-Broadley portrait of Elizabeth II as well as her name, the name of the issuing nation and the nominal value.
The reverse shows a portrait of William Shakespeare, his name, the year dates 1616-2016 and two quills.
William Shakespeare, portrait by Droeshout.
William Shakespeare is one of the most famous poets of all time. His masterpieces like Hamlet, Othello, or Romeo and Juliet are still in the repertoire of every theatre today. It is estimated that his plays have been printed, performed and turned into films up to four billion times.
William Shakespeare was born to wealthy parents in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Literary scholars have been wondering for centuries how a man with a fairly average school education was able to create such a literary oeuvre. Wordplay and what we would call action scenes made his plays popular with the common folk as much as with the highest nobility in his days. They have not lost popularity since. His sonnets, too, are similarly popular today and still recited with pleasure.
Indoor panorama from the Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London. Photo: Maschinenjunge / http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5
In his 52-year-long life, Shakespeare not only wrote a number of plays, he also appeared on stage as an actor. What’s more, he was a successful entrepreneur in the entertainment business. He co-owned a company of actors and held shares of the London Globe Theatre.
The coins were minted by B. H. Mayer’s Kunstprägeanstalt GmbH. Collectors can purchase the issues through specialty dealers.
Please find more information on these coins here.
This is the website of Coin Invest Trust.
You can find all of Shakespeare’s works at OpenSourceShakespeare.
And on YouTube you can watch the BLC Theatre presents Hamlet by William Shakespeare.