The Royal Mint has just released a four-coin collection set comprised of silver Piedfort specimens of the three new commemorative coins for 2008 - the two magnificent £5 pieces, one honouring the 450th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth I and the other celebrating the 60th birthday of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and the bi-colour £2 coin marking the centenary of the Olympic Games held in London in 1908 - along with the £1 coin bearing a fresh rendition of the Royal Arms.

The four coins have been struck in the traditional sterling silver alloy to Proof quality and the £2 coin, to emulate the bi-colour nature of its circulating counterpart, has been plated with .999 fine gold on its outer ring. A maximum of 3,000 Silver Proof Piedfort Collections have been authorised for 2008. Each collection is beautifully displayed in a luxurious black display case and is accompanied by a full-colour booklet which incorporates an individually numbered Certificate of Authenticity.

Although not Piedforts in a strict sense, thicker than normal coins were produced across Europe during the early modern period, particularly from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century, as part of the broader practice of striking prestige pieces. At this time the exchange of valuable gifts between rulers and members of their entourage became an established courtly exercise. Within this context coins struck on thick blanks, together with other types of prestige pieces, were prepared on behalf of kings and noblemen primarily for the purposes of presentation and display. From Poland to the Spanish Netherlands, from Sweden to northern Italy, coins of this sort provided rulers with a convenient means of emphasising their wealth and power.

There are a limited number of these unusually thick prestige pieces from England, most spectacularly the gold double sovereigns of Henry VII which bore the same design as the sovereign. The Mint indentures do not provide for double sovereigns and it seems probable, therefore, that they were special productions created by order of the king.

After the decline of the European tradition of the prestige pieces in the eighteenth century, the striking of modern Piedforts on a regular basis began at the Monnaie de Paris in the 1890s, partly in answer to demands from collectors. It was not until the introduction of the twenty pence in 1982, however, that the Royal Mint made a Piedfort version of a United Kingdom coin available to the public.