{"id":386780,"date":"2025-11-18T04:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T04:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/386780\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T04:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T04:35:13","slug":"queens-freddie-mercury-honored-with-royal-mint-coin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/386780\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen’s Freddie Mercury honored with Royal Mint coin"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Britain\u2019s Royal Mint is celebrating Freddie Mercury<\/a> with a new coin design that marks 40 years since his iconic Live Aid<\/a> concert performance. <\/p>\n

The coin features an image of the Queen front man, head thrown back and holding the microphone stand midperformance. A musical stave that runs around the edge of the coin represents his four-octave vocal range.<\/p>\n

The first coin was struck by Mercury\u2019s sister Kashmira Bulsara at the Royal Mint in Wales last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Freddie died young, he didn\u2019t get the chance of being awarded a royal medal for his talents in the music world. So to have a royal coin this way is wonderful and very fitting,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coin perfectly captures his passion and the joy he brought to millions through his music,\u201d she added. \u201cI think the design is very impressive and they managed to catch the most iconic pose of Freddie, which is so recognizable worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Royal Mint\u2019s director of commemorative coin, Rebecca Morgan, said the timing was perfect for Mercury to be celebrated with his own coin. She said fans had been \u201ccalling out\u201d for it and \u201cthis felt like the year to do it,\u201d because it\u2019s 40 years since he captivated audiences at the 1985 Live Aid concert, hailed by many as the greatest live gig of all time.<\/p>\n

This year also marks the 40th anniversary of Mercury\u2019s solo studio album, \u201cMr Bad Guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercury died at age 45 in 1991, just one day after he publicly announced he was HIV positive.<\/p>\n

The Royal Mint has issued special coins to celebrate other music legends including David Bowie, George Michael, Shirley Bassey and Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n

The coins go on sale on the Royal Mint website on Tuesday. Prices start at 18.50 pounds ($24.4) for an uncirculated 5-pound denomination version. A 2 oz. gold proof coin costs 9,350 pounds ($12,315.)<\/p>\n

The Royal Mint said it will donate a special gold edition of the coin to the Mercury Phoenix Trust, a charity that was started in the singer\u2019s memory and donates funds to those living with AIDS and HIV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Britain\u2019s Royal Mint is celebrating Freddie Mercury with a new coin design that marks 40…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":386781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[7654,171,133026,57,184551,975,53324,184549,184550,376,67,132,68,32405,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-386780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-david-bowie","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-freddie-mercury","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-george-michael","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-paul-mccartney","15":"tag-rebecca-morgan","16":"tag-shirley-bassey","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-wales","22":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115568844679330133","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}