UK: speculation about the 2023 Charles III regular circulation series

Started by <k>, November 25, 2022, 06:52:32 PM

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Deeman

Quote from: peter.c.fischer on October 08, 2023, 09:56:31 AMWhen looking at the picture, two considerations come to mind:
1.) Isn't there a 2 pound coin?
2.) What kind of nominal is that at the very end?
(the little gold coloured one)
Are we seeing a new denomination here (£5)?

Another train of thought. Maybe the £2 is to become a dodecagon with the £1 reverting to circular.

Alan71

Quote from: peter.c.fischer on October 08, 2023, 09:56:31 AMWhen looking at the picture, two considerations come to mind:
1.) Isn't there a 2 pound coin?
2.) What kind of nominal is that at the very end?
(the little gold colored one)
Are we seeing a new denomination here (£5)?
Yes, I'd say it's definitely the £2.  If you notice, the 2p isn't right either as it looks smaller than the 10p when in reality the opposite is the case.

It's also allowing for gaps between the coins, so the 50p is at the front and the £2 quite a way behind so it looks small.  But it's not the right scale as it's not a photo.

In a sense, it reflects the lack of importance of the £2.  They've never got it right, and the introduction of the 12-side £1 provided an opportunity to correct it, but it was squandered.  You're still more likely to get a handful of £1 coins in change than a single £2.  Contrast with the 20p back in 1982 that was done so well.  From the start, it was very common and significantly reduced the number of 10p coins in circulation.

I'm hoping we never see a circulating £5 now that longer-lasting polymer notes are in use.  So few countries have ever issued a five unit coin into circulation as it makes the currency start to look a bit worthless.

Figleaf

Tradition is there to be broken, else it would be useless. Like Hammurabi's law, that stipulated that anyone proposing to change it should be put to death. Here's a different tradition that has worked with one exception for the last 200 years: in the Netherlands, the ruler is portrayed as he/she looked on their coronation day. Thus, the present king will remain beardless on the coins.

The one exception is Wilhelmina, so the tradition can be broken if there is a reason, in this case a child queen and two world wars.

The point is that a well-resembling portrait may have had a use before photography, newspapers and internet, but that use has steadily diminished over time and is now at or close to zero. In fact, in Scandinavian countries, lower denominations no longer even have a portrait of the royal.

I can almost hear the Sun and its ilk quacking that it's un-English :D

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

FosseWay

Quote from: andyg on October 08, 2023, 10:30:24 AMI think the small one at the end is the £2, the edge is certainly right.
I wonder if the reason is that they don't want us to read the new wording (?)
Yes - the coins aren't to scale or in the right order size-wise. Not only is the £2 obviously out of place, but also the 10p is not larger than the 2p.

As to whether we should have changed the reverses in 2008 - for me that's a question that's independent of the monarch's reign. I'm agnostic about whether the old designs should have been abandoned, and (like most people, it seems) didn't much like the jigsaw series. But it's not a given that reverses change when the monarch changes. The predecimal coppers each continued the same reverse over several reigns (the penny from 1860 to 1967 with only minor changes, the halfpenny and farthing from 1860 to 1936 and a new design from 1937 onwards).

Continuing with the jigsaw was entirely possible for 2023, but I imagine the RM saw the change of monarch as a good opportunity to move on.

FosseWay

Quote from: Figleaf on October 08, 2023, 12:30:27 PMIn fact, in Scandinavian countries, lower denominations no longer even have a portrait of the royal.
Swedish öre coins had no portrait from 1909 (the accession of Gustav V) onwards - it's not a modern development. And although all the decimal issues from 1855 to 1909 did have the monarch's portrait, most earlier coinage, especially copper, didn't.

So the tradition wasn't really there in the first place to be broken ;)

On the other hand, I'm sure that if someone suggested that the Bank of England should ditch the monarch's portrait there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usual quarters, even though that "tradition" only dates from the 1960s.

eurocoin

The coins will be unveiled and be available for sale from 6 PM today (UK time).

krishna

Quote from: Offa on October 07, 2023, 06:28:48 PMI'm so happy that the jigsaw reverse has been consigned to history.
it can be referred as a puzzle reverse rather than Jigsaw, which is a power tool (generally)

Deeman

Quote from: krishna on October 12, 2023, 10:33:11 AMit can be referred as a puzzle reverse rather than Jigsaw, which is a power tool (generally)

The jigsaw puzzle has been around since the 18th century, long before power tools came into existence.

In 1946, Albert Kauffman, an employee of the Swiss power tool manufacturer Scintilla AG, identified the woodworking potential of the rapid up-and-down motion of the needle in his wife's sewing machine.
He decided to experiment and replaced the needle with a hacksaw blade. With the adapted machine, he was able to make curved cuts in wood. This signalled the introduction of the electric jigsaw.

Alan71

Someone posted this image on Change Checker as a possibility of the new designs.  It retains aspects of the jigsaw but as more individual designs.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

FosseWay

::)

Still no numerical denominations?

(I realise that this is just someone's guess.)

Alan71

That image appears to have been removed from the comments on the Change Checker post.  I must have caught it in time.  I wonder if that means there was something in it?  We'll know in six hours anyway.

<k>

The designs seem to have been copied from the "royal beasts" series of a few years ago.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

<k>

So who is the Royal Mint's top coin designer these days? One or two of their younger ones left in recent years.

John Bergdahl does a lot of work for them, but it's mainly the heraldic stuff, I think.

Which artist do you think will be revealed tonight as the designer?
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.

Alan71

I was mistaken, the image hasn't been removed.  Someone on Change Checker also pointed out it was a mock-up copied from the Queen's Beasts designs, so we will not be seeing these tonight.

Alan71