Description
This listing is for one uncirculated:
SUB-ANTARCTIC FUR SEAL
Tristan Da Cunha Nightingale Island
2011 One Crown Legal Tender Copper-Nickel Commemorative Coin Uncirculated
Comes In Sealed Plastic Bag From Mint
Great addition for your world commemorative coin and/or seal collection!
This coin shows a Sub-Antarctic Fur Seal, “Nightingale Island,” and “ONE CROWN”on the front.
Queen Elizabeth II, “Tristan da Cunha,” and “2011” are on the back.
One Crown legal tender coin from Tristan da Cunha.
This 38 mm diameter coin is much larger than both USA quarter (24.26 mm in diameter) and USA half dollar (30.61 mm in diameter).
Edge is smooth.
The Tristan da Cunha is home to two species of seal (pinnipeds or Pinnipedia), with several breeding colonies. The two species are Subantarctic Fur Seals (Arctocephalus tropicalis) and Southern Elephant Seals (Mirounga leonina). Having been overexploited by sealers in the 19th century, numbers are now recovering.
Sealers, mostly from the United States, hunted the seals at Tristan during the late 18th century and the 19th century. Typically, a party of men was left on an appropriate beach with supplies and the necessary equipment. They then proceeded to slaughter all the seals they could find – the fur seals mainly for their pelts, and the elephant seals mainly for their blubber. Paintings by the Victorian artists Augustus Earle show a sealer flensing a young sea elephant, which involved skinning the animal and cutting the layer of blubber into large blocks. These were then tied together and rafted out to waiting boats for transport to the try pots where the blubber was boiled down to extract the oil, and stored in barrels until the ship came back to pick them up.
Tristan islanders also took seals whenever they could, as the pelts and oil were good for trading with passing ships. The German Stoltenhoff brothers, who attempted to settle Inaccessible Island, intended to make their living by sealing. However, the earlier slaughter had been so great that the local seals had been hunted almost to extinction, which was a significant factor in the failure of their enterprise.
Sealing no longer takes place, and numbers have slowly but surely increased. With Inaccessible and Gough Islands being designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2015 and the plan to introduce of the islands’ marine protection area by 2020, particular efforts are being made to conserve the seal populations.
The subject of this coin is the Subantarctic Fur Seal.
Fur seals are much more closely related to sea lions than true seals, and like sea lions the fur seal has external ears (many species of true seal are in fact earless). The fur seal also has relatively long and muscular fore flippers, and fur seals are also able to walk on all fours when the fur seals reach land. The fur seals most distinctive characteristic is the fur seals thick underfur which helps to keep the fur seal warm in freezing cold waters. The fur seals fur however has made the fur seal a long-time object of commercial hunting by humans.
The fur seal spends most of its time swimming in the open oceans hunting for food. Fur seals feed on fish and plankton but are also prone to hunting squid and eels. The fur seal is often targeted prey for large aquatic animals such as sharks, killer whales, sea lions and occasionally the larger adult leopard seals.
Fur seals tend to return to specific beaches or rocky alcoves to breed which the fur seals do in the summer months. The fur seal pups are sent into the water as soon as the mother fur seal is finished weaning them in order for the fur seal pups to learn how to hunt. Fur seals are the most common seal species in Tristan. There are breeding populations during the summer months on all of the main islands, and they may haul themselves out on most of the island beaches. On the Tristan settlement plain, the fur seals camouflage themselves against the grey lava boulders.
For these reasons, Tristan da Cunha decided to commemorate the Subantarctic Fur Seal on this coin.
Nightingale Island is an active volcanic island that is part of the Tristan da Cunha group. Though it has no permanent inhabitants, Tristan da Cunha has issued a series of wildlife commemorative coins in honor of the island.
This listing is for one coin only – the Mahi-Mahi coin.
Tristan da Cunha, colloquially Tristan, is both a remote group of volcanic islands in the south Atlantic Ocean and the main island of that group. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) from the nearest inhabited land, Saint Helena, and 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) from the nearest continental land, South Africa. It is 3,360 kilometres (2,090 miles) from South America. The territory consists of the main island, Tristan da Cunha, which has a north–south length of 11.27 kilometres (7.00 miles) and an area of 98 square kilometres (38 sq mile), and the smaller, uninhabited Nightingale Island and the wildlife reserves of Inaccessible and Gough islands. As of January 2017, the main island has 262 permanent inhabitants. Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is the only major settlement of Tristan da Cunha, and contains a small port, the Administrator’s residence, and the post office. The other islands are uninhabited, except for the personnel of a weather station on Gough Island.
PHOTOS ENLARGED TO SHOW DETAILS.
PARDON REFLECTIONS IN PHOTOS DUE TO COIN BEING REFLECTIVE — YOU CAN SEE CAMERA LENS AND MY FINGERS REFLECTED ON COINS.
THERE MAY BE SOME DISCLORATION, TONING AND/OR SPOTTING.
COIN MAY HAVE SUPERFICIAL NICKS AND SCRATCHES.
COIN YOU RECEIVE MAY DIFFER FROM THAT SHOWN IN PHOTO BUT WILL BE IN SAME GENERAL CONDITION. COLOR AND HUE OF COIN YOU RECEIVE MAY VARY FROM THAT SHOWN DUE TO COMPUTER AND PHOTOGRAPHY ISSUES AND DUE TO INDIVIDUAL COIN VARIABILITY.
This coin is a great addition to your coin or animal collection and is a great way to start a coin collection for your child or grandchild!
BUY IT NOW
100% GUARANTEE OF AUTHENTICITY.
Please be sure to read this listing carefully, thoroughly and completely and to ask questions before buying so you are completely satisfied with your purchase.
This listing includes free shipping to USA by USPS First Class Mail with delivery confirmation.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.