2016 Pearl Harbor 75th Anniversary Silver Proof — PCGS Certified

2016 Pearl Harbor 75th Anniversary silver proof struck for Tuvalu by the Perth Mint, PCGS certified in the original holder. One example held.

A commemorative proof issued for the seventy-fifth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, struck in .9999 fine silver by the Perth Mint under the Tuvalu authority and carrying Ian Rank-Broadley's effigy of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse. The reverse is a low-altitude scene: two aircraft over Battleship Row with the moored fleet below and the legend PEARL HARBOR MCMXLI in Roman numerals around the rim. It is a mirror-field proof with frosted devices, and the anniversary mintage was limited — these were sold into the American market almost entirely, which is why survivors are usually found in U.S. holders rather than Australian ones.

At 7:48 on the morning of Sunday, 7 December 1941, three hundred and fifty-three Imperial Japanese aircraft struck the United States Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor. Two thousand four hundred and three Americans were killed, four battleships were sunk, and the following day Congress declared war. The date remains one of the fixed points of American memory, and the seventy-fifth anniversary in 2016 was the last major anniversary at which a meaningful number of survivors were still living to mark it. That is the context this coin was issued into, and it is why anniversary issues of this kind tend to hold collector demand well beyond their metal content.

Aircraft over Battleship Row with the moored Pacific Fleet below and the legend PEARL HARBOR MCMXLI. The Roman numerals date the attack rather than the coin.

Demand for a dated anniversary commemorative does not reset each year the way a bullion series does. The seventy-fifth was the last major Pearl Harbor anniversary marked with survivors present in numbers.