I’m looking at the twenty-dollar bill I just pulled from my wallet, when Silly Question #478219907654 occurs to me.
I assume the Queen must approve the design of every coin and banknote that bears her portrait. Does she receive a sample when they’re finally manufactured? Does she have them in an album on her coffee table for visiting dignitaries to see? How many notes and coins is she on, anyways?
There’s a standard queen’s portrait for banknotes, and another for coins. It’s updated once every few years. She would only have to give her approval once.
I really doubt she has to individually approve each coin design. There are probably a hundred or more new designs issued each year if you include all of the commemorative coins from the dependencies that license the local currency to commercial mints (for example, I think she’s on the Star Wars coins from Niue, which are issued by the private New Zealand Mint, which isn’t at all affiliated with the government of New Zealand).
If you search mint.ca for “approved queen”, all of the hits are for coins that use her image or cypher in way other than just being on the front (she’s also on the tails side of some Diamond Jubilee coins).
I heard that Her Maj has her own private little toilet and the walls are decorated with wallpaper made of £50 notes and her loo roll is made out of supersoft and extra-sized £20 notes.
It’s sounds a little unlikely but she is said to have a mischievious sense of humour, our Betty.
It is a lesser known fact that her wealth comes mainly from the monies paid for publishing her image on coins notes and postage stamps, in fact, its the reason why we call them ‘Royalties’ to this day.
I just thought of a way to get people to switch from paper dollars to coins. Put nekkid pictures on them. Sacajawea on the dollar, Patrick Swayze on the two.
Maybe you can rig up some fancy technology so’s that the clothes wear off in circulation. That will keep everyone from hoarding them right out of the box and allow them to become accustomed to using them.