In celebration of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee and the re-release of their anti-royalist ground-breaking anthem God Save The Queen, The Sex Pistols' have launched their very own commemorative coin.
Minted at the Sex Pistol’s prestigious Pistol Mint - we think the lads might be taking the piss here, to be honesty, but let's play along - the coin displays English artist Jamie Reid's Union Jack design on one side and his famous royal punk motif on the reverse, which shows the Queen sporting a lip piercing.
The coin is presented inside a cushioned sapphire velvet presentation box, with the front face design embossed in silver. Accompanying the item is a bonus digital counterpart in the form of an NFT, which can redeemed via The Pistol Mint.
According to a splendidly tongue-in-cheek press release, the item is "a beautiful souvenir for all the family to cherish" that was produced to mark a "pivotal moment in British history".
The collectible souvenir coin will only be available for a strictly limited period, throughout the month of June 2022.
Recently, Sex Pistols vocalist John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, clarified his views on the monarchy, and revealed that the anti-royalist anthem God Save The Queen isn't entirely a reflection of his current beliefs.
In conversation with Piers Morgan for the broadcaster's much-hyped and little-watched Piers Morgan Uncensored show on Talk TV, Lydon declared - while throwing in a salute - that "everyone presumes that I'm against the royal family as human beings, I'm not. I'm actually really, really proud of the Queen for surviving and doing so well.
"I applaud her for that and that's a fantastic achievement. I'm not a curmudgeon about that."
Defending his views in the song, Lydon adds: "I just think that if I'm paying my tax money to support this system I should have a say so in how it's spent."
Released in 1977, during Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee, God Save The Queen, the Pistols' second single, was undeniably controversial at the time, and was banned from the BBC, with frontman Rotten describing the monarchy as a "fascist regime", and the Queen as "no human being".
The single eventually peaked at number 2 in the UK charts, though it has long been believed that the charts were 'fixed' that week to stop the Pistols' anthem reaching number 1.
Meanwhile, Danny Boyle's new Sex Pistols' drama Pistol premieres today on Hulu/Disney+. The six-part series is based around Sex Pistols’ guitarist Steve Jones’ 2018 memoir Lonely Boy and charts the rise and fall of the punk icons.
