2026 Winners

Gold Short-Story Competition

The Royal Mint Museum hosted a short story competition open to all 7- to 11-year-olds in the United Kingdom based around the topic of 'Gold'.

We received 4,760 entries and were truly impressed by the quality of the stories, which made the judging process especially challenging.

7-year-old Marlowe Askew-Smith won first prize for her story 'The Gold Fox'. Her delightful story is about a girl who makes a gold fox that comes to life and attracts the attention of a lonely king. It charmed our judge Dan Thomas, King’s Assay Master, who said “I would read this to my own children. It’s an incredibly uplifting story that shows gold is precious to us all for many reasons other than its value.”

Marlowe won a gold coin for herself, £25 National Book Tokens, £5,000 worth of Peters equipment and books for her school library, and her story illustrated by Laura K Sayers.