Great Britain under George VI - King: 11 December 1936 – 6 February 1952
1940 Silver Threepence 16mm (1.41 grams) 0.500 Silver (0.0226 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 848 | Obverse Designer: T.H. Paget | Reverse Designer: George Krueger-Gray
GEORGIVS VI D : G : BR : OMN : REX, Head of King George VI left.
FID:DEF:IND:IMP THREE◦PENCE, St. George shield on Tudor rose dividing 1940.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

available for sale in my storeall coins of Great BritainClick here to see

George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death. He was the last Emperor of India and the first Head of the Commonwealth .

As the second son of King George V , he was not expected to inherit the throne and spent his early life in the shadow of his elder brother, Edward . He served in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force during the First World War , and after it took on the usual round of public engagements. He married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923 and they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret .

George's elder brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII upon the death of their father in 1936. However, later that year Edward revealed his desire to marry the divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson . British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin advised Edward that for political and religious reasons he could not marry a divorced woman and remain king. Edward abdicated in order to marry, and George ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor .

During George's reign the break-up of the British Empire and its transition into the Commonwealth of Nations accelerated. The parliament of the Irish Free State removed direct mention of the monarch from the country's constitution on the day of his accession. Within three years, the Empire and Commonwealth, except the Irish Free State, was at war with Nazi Germany . In the next two years, war with Italy and Japan followed. Though Britain and its allies were ultimately victorious, the United States and the Soviet Union rose as pre-eminent world powers and the British Empire declined. After the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, George remained as king of both countries, but the title Emperor of India was abandoned in June 1948. Ireland formally declared itself a republic and left the Commonwealth in 1949, and India became a republic within the Commonwealth the following year. George adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth. He was beset by health problems in the later years of his reign. His elder daughter, Elizabeth, succeeded him.

Great Britain, also known as Britain, is an island in the North Atlantic off the north-west coast of continental Europe . With an area of 209,331 km² (80,823 sq mi), it is the largest island in Europe and the ninth-largest in the world . In 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the third-most populous island in the world, after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan . The island is the largest in the British Isles archipelago , which also includes the island of Ireland to its west and over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands .

The island is dominated by an oceanic climate with quite narrow temperature differences between seasons. Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland , constituting most of its territory: most of England , Scotland , and Wales are on the island, with their respective capital cities, London , Edinburgh , and Cardiff . The term Great Britain often extends to include surrounding islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales.

A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the Union of Scotland and England (which already comprised the present-day countries of England and Wales ) in 1707. More than a hundred years before, in 1603, King James VI , King of Scots , had inherited the throne of England, but it was not until 1707 that the Parliaments of the two countries agreed to form a unified state. In 1801, Great Britain united with the neighboring Kingdom of Ireland , forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , which was renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the Irish Free State seceded in 1922.