The Royal Mint has also chosen not to license its current UK portrait to any other states, for security reasons, so nobody else is using that one. (The same artist made a different version used in some other places, mostly minor British islands but also now Australia.)
And Belize still uses the 1950s colonial portrait (until the late 60s, colonies used an effigy with the monarch wearing the crown).
But bear in mind that Australia decimalised several years before the UK (I want to say 5 years, but someone may correct me), and also that Australia stopped minting 1/- and 2/- coins some years prior to decimalisation.
So the gradual disappearance of pre-decimal coins may have happened at a similar rate in both countries - just that by the time you were of age to notice such things in Australia it had got a lot further than it had in the UK by the time you went there.
Australia removed silver from its coins at the same time that it switched to decimal currency, while Britain did so twenty years before, so there was no real value in the British predecimal coins, but the Australian ones were worth more than their face value.
As a point of reference, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated the U.S. Mint started work on designing a coin even before it was authorized by Congress. They adapted existing artwork from other uses and were able to start minting the Kennedy half-dollar on January 30, 1964 – less than ten weeks after Kennedy was assassinated.
I’m guessing the Commonwealth nations already have designs approved for new coins, bills, stamps, etc. and can begin production on fairly short notice.
In the past, new stamps and coins have appeared fairly quickly (few months).
The Edward VIII stamps appeared well before the proposed coronation date, and such large quantities were sold that they still aren’t rare or valuable.
Interesting. Also, I realised that Australia was increasing in population so fast (still is) that the Mint must have been pumping out new coins pretty hard to keep up. That would have meant the old coins would have become rare, and hence liable to be randomly souvenired, much faster, even without any perceived difference in value
There seems to be a strange idea, especially among Americans for some reason, that Charles is unpopular or would not be a popular monarch. I don’t think there is any evidence for this view. Perhaps a lot of foreigners bought into the tabloid “Saint Diana” myth that most Brits saw through?
As others have mentioned, the brief reign of Edward VIII gives a good idea. Coins never made it before he abdicated (after 11 months) but stampswere issued after less than eight months.
‘Spocking your fives’ has never had much attraction here, also the plasticised banknotes will make this rather difficult.
The Bank of England will be hoping that Her Majesty stays on the throne for a while, as they’ve just introduced a new note today.
So now it’s just the £50 notes (and various Scottish/NI notes) that are paper.
I remember in the mid to late 60’s there were still coins of both Georges floating around, and occasionally an Edward almost worn away to blank. What did these coins in was the spike in silver prices in the early 70’s that made the coins worth more than their face value. Most disappeared from circulation, despite laws against melting them down.
Keep in mind that the lifetime of bills is measured in few years - bills more than 10 years old are a rarity. (which is why switching to $1 and $2 coins instead was economical, although Canad has followed ANZ in using plastic bills instead now, which should be more durable). Canada seems to issue new bill designs every 10 to 20 years and as mentioned Betty is only on the $20; so we’re doing the Tubman thing, slowly replacing Betty and old white politicians with politically correct figures. My nomination for who should be on the forthcoming $5 is Banting and Best, but it looks like Terry Fox is the front runner. I suspect when Chuck takes over, Canada will use that as a reason to switch to different portraits. Or maybe more wildlife.
Also, there’s a gap of up to a year between when the one monarch dies and the formal crowning of the new one - particularly considering the organizing and pageantry for a coronation, the solemn process of a funeral, etc. So there’s plenty of time to contemplate and design before the new currency comes out. No effort is made to recall the old currency, it makes its way to the recycle bins in the banks in due time.
Is there a reason for the gigantic range of tints and hues in the color of what presumably should be identical coins? Did they change the copper/nickel ratio yearly? Or is that a weird artifact of photos and lighting conditions?
Lighting - in your pocket they are all the same. Being mirror-shiny, fresh proofs must be a complete bastard to photograph consistently.
This is certainly NOT a political or any other kind of ‘jab’ at Prince Charles. I have considerable respect for him and it seems that he was unusually prescient about climate change too.
As for the comment about defacing the portraits; that will be difficult with the new-style notes, even if anyone actually wanted to.
The website of the UK Postal Museum has this more-detailed-than-is-probably-necessary account of how the Post Office issued its new stamps after George VI’s death. What that makes clear is that although officials had discussed the matter in some detail in advance, nothing was actually done until a week after the late King’s death. The Royal Collection’s website has a page about the photographs Dorothy Wilding then took on 26 February 1952 for those stamps, as well as for the new notes and coins.
When I was at school in the 1980s, and 5p would still buy you a bag of cheesy puffs or a bar of toffee, I remember using the shilling coins with George VI on, and occasionally even George V. Those were pretty rare as they (along with the older George VI coins) were 50% silver and I think even then were worth more than their face value.
A sobering thought that those seemingly ancient coins from the 1930s were newer at the time than some of the pennies and 2p coins in circulation today.
Hmm I wonder. Could developing currency with Charles’ face on it before his mother’s death be a violation of the treason act?
Not any more than the regular updating and rehearsal of Operation London Bridge is, surely.
Exactly. They’ll just put Charles’ head on the new money whenever they’d be printing/striking it anyway, and take the old stuff with Elizabeth’s head on it out of circulation as they already do.
So that’ll mean that paper money will turn over relatively quickly, but coins with Elizabeth’s head could be in circulation for decades, as there’s been 68 years of coins struck with her head on them thus far. Think about here in the US how you occasionally run across Bicentennial quarters in circulation some 44 years later? It would be like that, except more so.
I’d also be willing to bet that the Royal Mint has probably chosen a portrait of Charles and designed the coins/bills, if not actually run up actual proofs already, because as someone else said, it’s a matter of when, not if at this point.
When silver prices spiked to $50/oz, which was extremely high back then as the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market, people began to realize that between that and inflation, dimes and quarters were worth more than face value. (nickels were, oddly enough, not silver but some other metal whose name escapes me) Canada for one reacted by making it illegal to melt down coins. I remember one news story about how people were thus trying to take bulk coins to the USA, where melting Canadian coins was not illegal. However, US customs would turn back anyone with too many coins and alert Canadian authorities. The article mentioned one fellow who hid the bags in his car’s engine compartment; the bags sprang a leak and he left a trail of coins across the bridge to US customs, where he was turned around.
When my wife worked in retail around 2000, she would swap out the occasional silver coin that went by; we accumulated may a dozen or two coins a year back then and they are far fewer nowadays. Plus, when a Canadian dollar was $0.92 US it was quite common to receive American coins in your change - less common with the dollar at $US0.75 today.
Maybe Britain was more aggressive about people melting down coins so they survived better. But in Canada, most of the old coins disappeared overnight. Edward VI and George V coins with the spiky beard portraits were pretty much worn flat by then anyway, I imagine the banks regularly sent them for recycling before the silverpocalypse.
The new polymer notes are expected to last for between five and ten years. As well as that, the general use of coins and notes is rapidly declining, so there may well be no need to print new ones for some years to come. It’s possible that notes with King Charles’s (or whatever he decides to call himself) picture on, will soon become collector’s items.