OK everyone knows that QEII is immortal and so this question will never happen in real life, but let’s suppose she dies some day.
Then what happens to all the British money with her picture on it. I assume QEII is also on money in other countries too.
So what happens. OK let’s say Charles becomes king. Does the UK Mint (who is ever in charge, I don’t know who) immediately start pulling pound notes with her picture and replacing them with pound notes with Charles picture in it?
I don’t think there’s a general recall. I think the money just gets replaced by normal circulation.
When I was young child in the sixties, I can remember seeing Canadian coins that had King George VI on them.
There’s still the occasional coin with George VI turns up in my change. And by occasional, I mean I got a George VI dime earlier this year, and a penny a couple years earlier.
The coinage and currency then in circulation remains valid until taken out of circulation for excessive wear or being demonetized. New coinage and currency bears the portrait of the new monarch – and they usually finish a year’s coinage before switching portraits. As Little Nemo noted, George VI Canadian coins were relatively common in Upstate New York the later 50s and 60s – and there was the occasional George V coin showing up.
Somebody can detail what happened with the migration to decimal currency in the U.K., but I know some coins “crossed the divide”, so to speak, being the equivalent fraction of a pound in both systems.
Yes, they just get replaced during normal usage. In Canada, at least, coins and banknotes of the previous monarch haven’t been withdrawn.
Elizabeth has been Queen since the early fifties (1953 I think), and since then, there have been four complete redesigns of Canadian banknotes, some of which bear her face. There’s another one set for 2011. So far, she’s been more durable than the banknotes…
Coins go through the same process but more slowly. All Canadian coins bear the monarch’s face. It seems to take about ten years for the banknote population to turn over and be completely replaced in Canada, but more like thirty for the coin population to turn over… But she’s been Queen long enough that coins of previous monarchs are very rare now.
They’ll remain legal tender, unless and until recalled for other reasons.
Banknotes turn over fairly quickly, so notes with the present Queen’s image will disappear fairly soon after her death.
Note, though, that there is no rule that the monarch’s image must appear on British banknotes. Before about 1960 it was unusual, though not unknown for a banknote to have the monarch’s head on it. Notes issues under the next monarch will not necessarily have his head on them.
Coins bearing the present queen’s head will likely continue in common circulation for years. Shilling coins continued to circulate as 5p pieces until 1990, and it wasn’t unusual to get a George VI shilling in change. It was rare but not unknown to get a George V shilling; he died in 1936.
Sam Clem can help on this, but one of the features of really sound monetary policy is that coins and notes are always good for their face-value. The U.K., Canada and the U.S. are some of the countries which follow this policy. It creates trust in the country’s money - that you can always use the coins and notes for their face value, no matter how old they are. In Canada, for example, even coins that were issued before Confederation by the colonial governments are still current coins.
So there would not be a wholesale recall of notes or coins, as others have noted, and even if they turn up years later, they would still be accepted at face-value.
For coinage, there is the tradition that orientation of the monarch’s head alternates with each monarch: Elizabeth II faces to the right, George VI faces to the left; Edward VIII was to face right, but no coins were issued because of his brief reign; George V faces to the left.
So Charles will face left on the coins when he ascends the throne.
I got a George VI penny in my change just the other day, by the way.
This is a question I’ve been wondering about with increasing relevance here in Thailand. King Chulalongkorn died unexpectedly in 1910 at the releatively young age of 57 after having reigned for 42 years. Especially with the shorter lifespans of the day, few people could even remember the previous king (whom Yul Brynner portrayed in The King and I), and they had to search for the long-forgotten funeral rites and ceremonies.
The present king, his grandson, may not have much longer to go. He’s reigned even longer, 64 years so far, and is on all the money and most of the stamps. Forget public sentiment, it’s going to be a logistical nightmare when he goes. Plus his birthday and the wife’s have been public holidays for as long as most people can remember. Will that change with a new set of royals? If so, it would be like changing the date of, say, Thanksgiving or Memorial Day, it’s so ingrained.
It can take a while to phase out all the old coins. The withdrawal of QE II coins in Hong Kong began in the early 90s. You can still see them occasionally even today. They’re still legal tender, though, so it’s all good.
All “silver” was valid post-decimalisation. Even the sixpence did duty as a 2½p coin - the half new penny was not dropped until the 1980s. As for George VI, pshaw! I used to see coins from George V, Edward VII and even the occasional Victoria penny (no silver though - silver coins from that era really were silver and had long since been recalled). But all old “silver” is gone now - the coins were resized circa 1990 and the modern 5p is much smaller than the 1968 (sic) 5p and pre-decimal shilling, etc.
In the Netherlands, our famous ‘Queen’s day’ is actually celebrating the birthday of the now deceased queen mum and not the birthday of queen Beatrix…I’m sure that if heir to the throne Willem Alexander becomes king, we will still keep on celebrating Queen’s Day on April 30…
Discussion of QEII’s immortality reminds me of a funny story. I’ve a 30-year old Brit friend. He’s rather intelligent but has his lapses. Anyway, during the Olympic Games a while back the topic of national anthems came up, e.g. God Save the Queen. He suddenly looked startled and said
“But … but what was our anthem before she was Queen !” 
A similar issue are mailboxes (the public ones where you drop letters for delivery, not the private ones where the postman drops your letters). Each public mailbox in the UK bears the monogramme of the monarch who was on the throne when the box was set up. Since the average lifespan of these heavy British iron mailboxes is quite long, you still see - in addition to the numerous E(II)R monogrammes - also G(VI)R, E(VII)R or even the occasional VR symbol.
Unfortunately no pre-decimal coins have been legal tender since July 1, 1993, when the florin (2 shilling coin, i.e. 10 new pence) was demonetised. The reason for that was that a new smaller 10p coin had been introduced the previous year, to replace the one that was identical in size to the florin.
In fact the decimal 5p and 10p coins were brought in in 1968, three years before decimalisation*. They circulated alongside shillings and florins, with identical values, both before and after decimalisation. I was born in 1977, six years after “decimal day”, but I grew up with shillings and florins in my pocket money. I thought it was cool to see coins from the 1930s with long-dead kings on them - and of course a nice link to the “pounds shillings and pence” I read about in old books.
Nowadays, the oldest coins in circulation are 1p and 2p coins from 1971. The 5p was resized in 1990, the 10p in 1992 and the 50p in 1997. Of the other coins, the 20p was introduced in 1982, the £1 in 1983 and the (current) £2 coin in 1997.
In the late '60s there was a wave of interest in old coins and many of us children got into the ‘check your change’ thing, buying small booklets about the comparative rarity. It was occasionally possible to find Victorian pennies circulating, often very worn, and with some persistence one could assemble almost a full set from the 1890s onwards to 1967 when the minting of £.s.d. coins ceased.
Actually, the coins that were designed (but not issued) with Edward VIII’s head on it had him facing left—he thought his left side was his best side.
Olav V of Norway died in January 1991. Coins with the new king, Harald V, did not appear until 1992, and as far as I recall not all the coins were replaced at the same time. These things take time.
Simply do what the Queen does: two birthdays. One for when you were born, one for the official date.
Also, there are no pound notes.
Edward VIII patterns. I understand there were also some British West Indies coins bearing his portrait.
This sort of thing can take a while to change out. Heck, over here in the US, George Washington died two hundred years ago, and you still see bills with his face on them.