The Mayflower sailed from England in 1620, and for the 400th anniversary the U.S. Mint and The Royal Mint of the United Kingdom produced a joint set of coins and medals. Their designs tell the story in turns: the British coins show the ship at sea, and the American gold coin shows the arrival as the Wampanoag people saw it and the Pilgrims who came ashore at Plymouth. Chris Costello, one of the Mint's Artistic Infusion Program artists, designed both sides of the U.S. gold coin and the reverse of the British coins.
The Mint did not treat it as a commemorative program. It struck the gold coin under the Treasury Secretary's standing authority over gold bullion coins and the silver medals under its medal authority, while a 2017 bill for a congressional Mayflower commemorative never became law. The products went on sale on November 17, 2020. The U.S. Mint offered four of them: a two-coin gold proof set pairing its $10 coin with The Royal Mint's £25, a reverse proof $10 gold coin sold singly, a silver set with a British £2 coin and an American medal, and a reverse proof silver medal. The Royal Mint sold its own versions of the joint sets, 500 gold and 5,000 silver, in different packaging. The silver medals are not coins and have their own pages in our medals section.
