The gold coronet, placed on Prince Charles's head at Caernarfon Castle by his mother in 1969, will be displayed at the celebration attended by all senior members of the royal family today.
But the coronet, designed by celebrated goldsmith Louis Osman, hides an astonishing secret which makes it rather unique among the monarch's crown jewels.
The orb in its centre is actually made from a ping pong ball.
Now, for the first time, David Mason, a 74-year-old retired chemical research manager from Warwickshire who made the striking gold circlet, tells the true story of the so-called 'imposter coronet' – including how the original design was smashed with just days to go, forcing him to drive with a hastily made replacement in the back of his unguarded Mini van.
Mr Mason was just 28 when he received a call in March 1969 from Mr Osman at his office at Engelhard Industries in Cinderford, then the world's largest refiner of precious metals.
He wanted to discuss a revolutionary new field Mr Mason was working in - gold electroforming - and revealed he had been asked to produce a headpiece for Charles's investiture as Prince of Wales.
Game of wiff waff? Prince Charles receives the crown from the Queen during his investiture as the Prince of Wales at Caernarvon Castle back in 1969 https://imgur.com/a/m81v5rL
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letsdothis3 ago
The Charles Engelhard Foundation https://www.activistfacts.com/foundation/70-CharlesEngelhardFoundation/
https://www.activistfacts.com/organizations/19-natural-resources-defense-council/ ::::
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is one of the largest and most well-funded environmental activist organizations in the United States. The organization was founded in 1970 with a $400,000 grant from the liberal Ford Foundation.
The NRDC conducts knee-jerk advocacy and creates scare campaigns on a wide array of environmentalist issues, including ending affordable energy, pushing a “guilty until proven innocent” chemical policy that goes against science, and opposing resource development.
Hedge-fund billionaire and environmental activist Tom Steyer, who could be called the next Al Gore, backs an anti-fossil fuel organization called the Energy Foundation, which has given millions to NRDC. Ironically enough, researchers have uncovered that Steyer’s hedge fund “minted a lot of money off oil and gas investments, among other environmentally destructive business ventures.” A profile of environmental groups profiting from the very oil and gas companies they fundamentally oppose by the progressive magazine The Nation confirmed that “NRDC still holds stocks in mutual funds and mixed assets that do not screen for fossil fuels.”
The NRDC also received more than $1.7 million in 2011 from the SeaChange Foundation—a foundation with dubious funders. An exposé by the Washington Free Beacon uncovered that Klein Ltd., a company incorporated in Bermuda that exists solely on paper, donated at least $10 million to the SeaChange Foundation. SeaChange then funnels that shadowy money to a number of progressive organizations.
NRDC has received similarly hidden contributions through other “donor-advised” funds, criticized by some watchdogs as “dark money.” The Schwab Charitable Fund, a donor-advised fund that donors to other left-environmentalist groups have used to obscure their identities, funneled at least $4.7 million in NRDC donations since 2008.
NRDC also receives considerable funding from more traditional liberal foundations. The George Soros-backed Open Society Institute and Foundation to Support Open Society gave NRDC over $2.2 million since 2008. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest left-environmentalist foundations in the country, has provided NRDC with over $4.7 million over that same period.