2022 Silver 1 oz Montserrat: Sea Turtle BU

The 2022 1 oz Montserrat Sea Turtle Silver Coin (BU) is Montserrat's entry in Scottsdale Mint's annual EC8 Series — one of the most ambitious sovereign bullion programs ever produced by a private mint. Struck in one troy ounce of .999 fine silver and finished to Brilliant Uncirculated standard, it carries official legal tender status issued by the government of Montserrat and backed by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), with a face value of $2 Eastern Caribbean Dollars (XCD).

Worldwide mintage is capped at 25,000 coins. Within the 2022 annual cycle, this is the sixth of eight unique island designs — and the fifth consecutive year Montserrat has appeared in the program, which Scottsdale Mint launched in 2018. Each annual cycle brings eight entirely new designs, one per ECCB member island, making the EC8 Series one of the most prolific and diverse wildlife and cultural coin programs in the precious metals market.

The EC8 Series: Eight Islands, Eight Unique Designs, Every Year

EC8 stands for Eastern Caribbean 8 — the eight island nations of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) that share the Eastern Caribbean Dollar as their common currency and are collectively served by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. The ECCB authorizes and backs each coin in the series as sovereign legal tender.

The eight member islands are:

Scottsdale Mint launched the EC8 Series in 2018 in partnership with the ECCB, producing eight silver and eight gold coins per year — each with an original design drawn from the history, wildlife, and culture of its respective island. By 2022, the program's fifth year, it had already produced more than 40 unique designs. It has continued through at least 2024, with over 200 different coins released to date.

Each annual EC8 cycle offers four format variants per island: Silver BU (this listing, 25,000 mintage), Silver Proof/Colorized (approximately 500 coins), Gold BU (2,500 mintage), and Gold Proof/Colorized (ultra-limited). For collectors entering the series, the silver BU is the most accessible format — the highest mintage and most affordable variant while still carrying a meaningful mintage limit by sovereign bullion standards.

The Reverse Design: Sea Turtle in the Caribbean Waters

The reverse features a detailed depiction of a sea turtle moving through the warm coastal waters off Montserrat — rendered with the precise die work Scottsdale Mint is known for across the EC8 program.

The composition shows a primary sea turtle in full forward-paddling posture, its four flippers extended outward and filling most of the coin's central field within an off-center circular frame. Above and to the left, the silhouette of a second, smaller turtle is visible — creating depth and suggesting the natural grouping behavior of sea turtles in their nesting environment. A decorative pattern runs along the lower edge, unique to the Montserrat design, adding visual complexity to the background field. Inscriptions read "MONTSERRAT" at the bottom rim and "2022" above the decorative pattern.

Both the obverse and reverse rims carry wavy radial lines — a signature EC8 security feature engraved along the coin's edge. These microscopic engravings serve a dual purpose: they add visual elegance to the rim treatment and make the coin significantly harder to duplicate in counterfeit production. The feature carries through every annual EC8 release.

The Obverse: Queen Elizabeth II by Ian Rank-Broadley

The obverse carries a portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the Ian Rank-Broadley effigy — one of the most significant numismatic portraits in modern Commonwealth coinage history.

British sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley created the portrait following an open competition in 1997, winning the commission with a design praised for its dignity and naturalism. First released in 1998, it is the fourth of five official effigies of Queen Elizabeth II produced for Commonwealth coinage during her seventy-year reign. The portrait depicts the Queen in right-profile relief at age seventy-one, wearing the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara — a diamond tiara Queen Mary gave to Princess Elizabeth as a wedding gift in 1947 and one of Her Majesty's most recognised pieces of jewelry. Evergreen laurels frame the portrait on either side, nearly filling the central inset — a characteristic of the EC8 obverse design.

Obverse inscriptions read: "QUEEN ELIZABETH II," "TWO DOLLARS," "1 OZ .999 SILVER," and "EASTERN CARIBBEAN CENTRAL BANK."

This coin was issued in 2022 — the year Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8. It belongs to the final group of EC8 coins to carry her portrait as reigning monarch. Future EC8 releases will bear King Charles III's effigy, making every QE II-era EC8 coin a defined and finite body of numismatic work.

Montserrat: The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean

Montserrat is one of the most remarkable — and most unusual — islands in the Caribbean. A British Overseas Territory in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, it was named by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World in 1493, after the Santa María de Montserrat monastery in Catalonia, Spain.

The Irish Connection and the "Emerald Isle" Nickname

Montserrat carries its nickname — the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean — for two interconnected reasons. The first is visual: the island's volcanic landscape of dense tropical forest, rolling green hills, and dramatic coastal scenery genuinely resembles coastal Ireland. The second is historical. Beginning in 1632, Oliver Cromwell deported Irish political dissidents and laborers to the Caribbean colonies, and Montserrat received a significant share of those exiles. Over generations, Irish immigrants and their descendants shaped the island's identity so deeply that Irish characteristics remain embedded in its surnames, music, food traditions, and civic life to this day.

Montserrat holds a distinction found nowhere else in the world: it is the only territory outside Ireland where St. Patrick's Day is an official public holiday. The shamrock appears on the island's national flag alongside its volcanic landscape — a detail that tells the story without any further explanation.

The Soufrière Hills Volcano: Montserrat's Defining Modern Catastrophe

The event that defines modern Montserrat is one of the most extraordinary geological disasters of the twentieth century. On July 18, 1995, the Soufrière Hills volcano — dormant throughout all of recorded island history — erupted without warning. What followed permanently reshaped Montserrat's geography, population, and identity.

The eruption buried Plymouth — Montserrat's Georgian-era capital — under more than twelve metres (thirty-nine feet) of volcanic mud and ash. Church steeples and a Victorian-era clock tower still protrude above the hardened deposits, visible above the volcanic surface. Plymouth is now known as the Pompeii of the Caribbean: one of the world's only ghost-town national capitals, uninhabited and inaccessible, frozen in geological time.

Approximately 7,000 people — two-thirds of the island's population — fled permanently, most to the United Kingdom. The population fell from roughly 11,000 before 1995 to fewer than 1,200 by 1997, recovering to approximately 5,000 by 2016. The southern two-thirds of the island remains an exclusion zone to this day.

The eruption also destroyed AIR Studios — the legendary recording facility built by Beatles producer George Martin in 1979, where The Rolling Stones, Dire Straits, Paul McCartney, and Sting had all recorded. Hurricane Hugo had already damaged it in 1989; the volcanic flows completed its destruction. Montserrat's recovery since — building a new capital at Brades, rebuilding its economy, and maintaining a functioning society on a partially habitable island beside an active volcano — stands as a sustained act of collective resilience.

Montserrat's Sea Turtles: Why This Design Matters

The sea turtle on this coin is not a generic wildlife choice. Montserrat is one of the most important sea turtle nesting sites in the Eastern Caribbean, and the design reflects that directly.

Research by the University of Exeter and the Marine Conservation Society documents approximately 100 sea turtles nesting annually in Montserrat during the June-to-November season — predominantly green turtles (Chelonia mydas) and hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) — across key beaches including Isles Bay, Old Road Bay, Lime Kiln Bay, Woodlands Beach, and Bumkum Bay. Satellite tracking has shown that Montserrat's green turtles migrate after nesting to foraging grounds across Antigua and Barbuda, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic — confirming that Montserrat functions as a critical reproductive hub for populations ranging across the entire Eastern Caribbean basin.

The conservation context behind this design is urgent. Of the seven sea turtle species known globally, six are classified as threatened or endangered on the IUCN Red List:

Both species that nest in Montserrat — the green turtle and the hawksbill — sit at the more serious end of that list. Furthermore, the Montserrat Tourism Authority actively promotes sea turtle watching as ecotourism, directing visitors to certified guides for nighttime nesting observations from May to December — a conservation approach that protects the turtles while providing direct economic benefit to the recovering island. In featuring the sea turtle on a sovereign coin, Montserrat and Scottsdale Mint have created a lasting numismatic statement about one of the Caribbean's most pressing conservation priorities.

Investment and Collection Value

For Silver Investors

One troy ounce of .999 fine silver — investment-grade purity equivalent to American Silver Eagles and Canadian Maple Leafs. The coin carries sovereign legal tender status backed by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, a recognised multilateral institution. Scottsdale Mint's ISO 9001:2015 certification guarantees weight and fineness on every strike. IRA eligible: the coin meets IRS requirements for inclusion in a Precious Metals IRA — .999+ fine silver, sovereign legal tender, recognised manufacturer.

For Series Collectors

The EC8 Series has produced eight unique designs per year since its 2018 launch — over 200 different coins to date, with each year's eight designs sharing a common obverse and carrying entirely original reverses. The 2022 silver BU is the most accessible format in this year's Montserrat release, with a 25,000 mintage well above the colorized proof (500 coins) and gold BU (2,500 coins). Furthermore, 2022 marks the final year of Queen Elizabeth II's portrait as reigning monarch across the EC8 program — giving every 2022 EC8 coin a defined numismatic identity that closes with her reign.

For Wildlife and Conservation Collectors

Few sovereign-issued coins specifically honor a nesting site of the ecological significance Montserrat holds for sea turtle conservation in the Eastern Caribbean. The University of Exeter and Marine Conservation Society satellite tracking program that documented Montserrat's turtle migration patterns is ongoing — connecting this coin to an active and evolving conservation story. With six of the seven known sea turtle species currently threatened or endangered, the design carries a thematic weight that goes well beyond standard wildlife numismatics.

Buy the 2022 EC8 Montserrat Sea Turtle Silver Coin at BOLD

BOLD Precious Metals is an authorized Scottsdale Mint dealer and carries the complete EC8 Series catalog — silver and gold, BU and proof, across all eight island designs. Our team has deep familiarity with the EC8 program and can assist collectors completing multi-year sets or building island-specific collections.

📧 support@boldpreciousmetals.com 📞 1(866) 454-BOLD

Free, fully insured domestic shipping on all orders of $199 or more.

Individual coins arrive in a protective plastic capsule. Multiples of five ships in a sealed skinboard; 125 coins ship in a sealed mint box.