Coinage portraits of King Charles III and related changes

[eurocoin]

Interestingly, The Koin Club which sells the 50 cents coin of the Solomon Islands to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the last flight of Concorde, that was to depict the Jan Petr portrait, has since changed the product images. No longer do they depict the Jan Petr portrait, but instead the Dan Thorne portrait will be used on the coin. And as this was the only known piece so far on which the Jan Petr portrait was to be used, it remains to be seen if that will be a real coinage portrait, and for which country or countries.

[<k>]

So the top image shows the Jan Petr portrait, and the bottom one shows the Dan Thorne portrait.

[quaziright]

We are close to seeing the Canadian version of the CIII portrait


https://orders-in-council.canada.ca/attachment.php?attach=44445&lang=en

the obverse impression is to depict, on the inner core of the coin, the effigy of His Majesty King Charles III by Steven Rosati, with the initials "SR" on the bottom right-hand corner of the lapel and on the outer ring, the inscriptions "CHARLES III" and "D∙G∙REX" to the left and right of the effigy, respectively, and, at the bottom of the outer ring, the inscription of the year of issue,

[GCVO]

"D∙G∙REX" feels a little cheap given how short "Rex" is compared to "Regina." They couldn't use the extra space to at least spring for a "DEI∙GRA∙REX"?

[eurocoin]

The obverse portrait of HM King Charles III that will be used on the Canadian coinage is going to be unveiled on Tuesday.

[Big_M]

The obverse portrait of HM King Charles III that will be used on the Canadian coinage is going to be unveiled on Tuesday.

Unveiled today at 13:00 CT at Winnipeg facility of RCM.

[<k>]

My usual attempt to improve the image.

Do we see the artist's initials on the King's lapel?

[quaziright]

yes, thats Steven Rosati's initials. By far this is probably the best portrait from the commonwealth realm that captures his likeness. Worst is probably NZ

[<k>]

Thank you, quazi. Yes, this is a very good one.

[Offa]

"D∙G∙REX" feels a little cheap given how short "Rex" is compared to "Regina." They couldn't use the extra space to at least spring for a "DEI∙GRA∙REX"?

Dg stands for dei gratia grace of god. The last time it was left off a uk coin it caused an uproar. The 1849 florin is referred to as the "godless florin" because of this.

[augsburger]

He looks a lot like Dubya Bush, and I get the impression he's turning his head.

[redlock]

My neck starts to hurt when I see this portrait 

[FosseWay]

Dg stands for dei gratia grace of god. The last time it was left off a uk coin it caused an uproar. The 1849 florin is referred to as the "godless florin" because of this.

Yes - but the question asked was not about omitting it, but using a longer version (DEI GRA or even the whole thing) because REX is shorter than REGINA.

[Figleaf]

I can only speculate. Two lines of thought come up.

In 1849, Western Europe was much more religious than it is today, with "no religion" usually being the top religion choice. In addition, to the historically conscious, the expression D.G. is negative. It comes from a time when populations were divided in three estates, nobility, church and plebs, vulgus, the hoi-polloi, the third estate or however they were called. This brought forth an unholy alliance where the church and nobility protected each other against the third estate. In that framework, by the grace of god means that god had given the ruler his position as a ruler. Therefore resistance to a ruler was sacrilege. The formula "dei gratia" is therefore both unrepresentative and out of touch with reality. Any discussion of the expression would have pitted traditionalists against those in favour of modernisation and the solution retained could have been a compromise like "we'll keep it, but make it as short as possible. The argument against this scenario is that modernisers would have been unhappy with the use of a dead language also.

The second line of thinking is more technical. The spacing between the characters is clearly different on the left and the right side. The goal must have been to make both parts of the legend of equal length. Inserting 7 letters on the right, even while removing the dots, would have made it necessary to increase the spacing between letters on the left. That in turn would have made it inevitable that the portrait was made smaller, since top and bottom of the portrait protrude in the space needed for the letters. The argument against this reasoning is that they could have made the letters smaller.

Peter

[NewHikaru089]

For Canada, this is their third homegrown effigy to be used for all circulation, non-circulating and bullion coins after Dora dePedery-Hunt and Susanna Blunt. The Susanna Blunt effigy was presented in a contemporary presentation, the new effigy of Charles III for Canada's coins also presents that.