Queen Elizabeth II Gifts: Buckingham Palace To Showcase Official Presents At Special Exhibition

The Buckingham Palace will showcase official gifts given to Queen Elizabeth II at a special exhibition, Royal Gifts exhibition curators said Monday. Visitors will be able to see more than 250 official presents from over 100 countries given to the queen during state visits, official engagements and overseas tours at the yearly summer opening of the state rooms at the palace.

Royal Gifts has chosen a few gifts to be showcased among the thousands that the queen has received during her monarchy. The annual summer opening starts from July 22 and ends on Oct. 1, 2017. Advance tickets for the showcase have been made available at the Royal Collection website.

Here's a list of a few gifts that were received by the queen during her 65 year reign:

1. One of the most unusual gift is a bag of salt from the British Virgin Islands that was presented to the queen for her 90th birthday. However, the 1lb bag of salt has been considered as tradition to be given to the monarch every year as rent for the island.

2. Nigeria gifted the queen a colorful Yoruba throne in 1956, which has been considered to be a symbol of wealth and status, attributing to the sheer number of beads woven together in order to create it. It also has a motif that represents respect for ancestors according to the Yoruba culture.

3. The queen picked up a specially commissioned "Buckingham Palace" London Underground sign during her tour of the Aldgate Station in 2010, which will also be showcased at the exhibition. In 2010, she described this gift as a "fantastic gift."

4. The Kwakiutl people of Canada’s north-west coast in 1971 gifted the queen a hand-carved wooden totem pole measuring 78 cm. It is topped with a beautiful mythical thunderbird with its wings unfurled. This totem fits appropriately into the state rooms, unlike another one that was gifted to the queen by the people of British Columbia, the 30 meters (3000 cm) long-totem, which has been placed at the Windsor Great Park.

5. One of the most treasured gifts presented to the queen includes the "Vessel of Friendship" that was gifted to her by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, during his visit to the U.K. in 2015. This ship was a model of the original treasure ship sailed by Zheng He, the 15th century Chinese navigator and diplomat. It has been beautifully decorated with a dove and olive branch medallion and also has traditional Chinese symbols of friendship and peace inscribed on it.

One among the other treasured gifts that will also be showcased include a hand-beaten silver fruit bowl, which was presented by the Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda in 1991.

The items that the queen has received are not considered personal property of the royals, they cannot sell or exchange them anytime. They become a part of the royal collection, then are passed on to her successors and held in trust by the queen for the country.