A 24-carat coin just sold for £20,000 — and the gold came from the same Welsh mine as the Royal Family's wedding rings
The Welsh gold mine synonymous with select members of the Royal Family are auctioning off three 24-carat gold coins.


When HRH The Princess of Wales, the then Catherine Middleton, and the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, both said ‘I do’, they accepted gold wedding bands from their respective husbands, sourced from Clogau-St David’s Gold Mine.
The Princess of Wales attends The Order of The Garter service at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, in June 2023
Welsh gold — and Clogau gold in particular — has long been prized for its connection to the Royal Family. In fact, as well as The Princess of Wales and Duchess of Sussex, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret, Princess Anne and Diana, Princess of Wales, all wore Clogau gold wedding bands. But it has also been prized for its rarity — with a total of 80,000oz mined since 1854 (for comparison, the world’s biggest gold mines can extract more than 1,000,000oz in a single year) and resources assumed to have been exhausted at some point in the 1990s.
Until now.
In 2018, Alba Mineral Resources bought what was once the UKs richest gold mine and embarked on a series of exploration and rehabilitation programmes — with the aim of using new, cutting-edge technology to seek out new seams of gold. Their exhaustive efforts have paid off because gold has been successfully mined from Clogau once again — and it will soon be available to purchase via an exclusive auction.
Alba has minted the gold into three exclusive 28-carat, 1oz ‘Tyn-y-Cornel’ coins. The front side features a Welsh dragon atop Cadair Idris (one of Snowdonia’s highest mountains); the reverse, an image inspired by old photographs of Welsh miners.
The first of these 1oz coins came up for auction towards the end of March and sold for £20,000 — nearly 8.5 times the current gold price. A further seven due to be manufactured. The definition of ‘limited edition’, each coin will arrive at its lucky owner's house in a Welsh oak box, lined in crushed velvet.
Visit the Alba website for more information.
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Rosie is Country Life's Digital Content Director & Travel Editor. She joined the team in July 2014 — following a brief stint in the art world. In 2022, she edited the magazine's special Queen's Platinum Jubilee issue and coordinated Country Life's own 125 birthday celebrations. She has also been invited to judge a travel media award and chaired live discussions on the London property market, sustainability and luxury travel trends. Rosie studied Art History at university and, beyond Country Life, has written for Mr & Mrs Smith and The Gentleman's Journal, among others. The rest of the office likes to joke that she splits her time between Claridge’s, Devon and the Maldives.
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