Here we have an extremely rare full presentation set of 2009 maundy as given out by the Queen herself at St Edmundsbury Cathedral on Maundy Thursday 2009 to a private recipient with red and white leather purses and 83 pence worth of Maundy money as well as the £5.50p in alms from the purses. A Henry VIII cupro nickel £5 of 2009 and a Kew Gardens 50 pence of 2009 and a small badge showing two maundy purses and date 2009 and relevant letter for the ceremony and car park pass.

Maundy money refers to the coins given to elderly people by the monarch in a ceremony that drew inspiration from the Bible when Jesus Christ washed the feet of his disciples on the day before Good Friday. The first Maundy money ceremony took place in the reign of Charles II, when the king gave people undated hammered coins in 1662. The coins, struck especially for the occasion, were a four penny, three penny, two penny and one penny piece. In 1670 the king started giving out a dated set of all four coins.

Maundy money has remained much the same since 1670, the coins used for the Maundy ceremony traditionally being struck in sterling silver. A Maundy set still consists of four small silver coins, but in 1971, at the time of decimalisation, the face values of the coins were changed from old to new pence.

Issued in 2009, these coins feature Mary Gillick’s youthful portrait of Her Majesty The Queen on the obverse. The reverse depicts the crowned numeral almost encapsulated by a wreath, a design first used during the reign of King William III and Queen Mary II.