Designed and sculpted by Vladimir Gottwald, this circulating commemorative fifty cents coin celebrates the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Australia. It has now been in circulation for 20 years.

These coins are remarkable with the fact that their obverse does not use the regular effigy of Her Majesty but Vladimir Gottwald's portrait of her, which had been short-listed in 1996 as a possible official effigy throughout the British Commonwealth. With this minting, Vladimir Gottwald became the first Australian designer since Sir Edgar Bertram Mackennal KCVO RA, who sculpted the 1910-1936 effigy of King George V, to have his work on the obverse of an Australian coin.