He’s looking good for a 74-year-old man. But you’d expect nothing less of an effigy given royal approval.
The jowls, the crow’s feet, the famous ears – they all get a flattering depiction. That’s not new. Royalty has been shown through a filter long before it became the social media norm.
But the 100 or so people gathered in a small room of the Royal Australian Mint on Thursday didn’t care about any of that. They were there to witness a small slice of history – the first look at Australian coins featuring a new monarch since 1953.
Queen Elizabeth II’s face appeared on 15.5bn coins in Australia. Her eldest son won’t become the dominant effigy for quite a few years yet. The last coin featuring QEII was released in January 2023. Given the life span of a coin in Australia is about 30 years, Australians will most likely still be carrying the Queen in their pocket when her grandson takes the throne.
Presuming, of course, that Australia doesn’t become a republic by then – the unspoken elephant in the room.
The federal assistant treasury minister, Dr Andrew Leigh, lit a firestorm of conservative rage in 2022 when he suggested there was “no guarantee” King Charles would appear on the $5 note shortly after the Queen died. That was confirmed in early 2023, when the RBA, which is in charge of such things, said the new $5 note would pay tribute to the “the culture and history” of Indigenous people.
But the heads side of the coin is the royal domain, and there was no doubt King Charles III would grace the currency, to be lost down the back of couches and stuck in car consoles for the coming decades.
The regent will appear on the $1 coin for the time being, and his appearance on other denominations will depend on demand – from banks, not the people. He’s without his crown, which is traditional for a first coin effigy – a regent of the people, on the people’s coin.
He’s also facing left, while his mother faced right. Not because of any differences in how they viewed the world – although as king, Charles can’t be as vocal on issues like climate change, lest he be accused of interference – but allegedly because the last King Charles (the second, back in 1660) wished to ‘turn his back’ on the upstart Oliver Cromwell, who’d been cast on coins facing the left.
On retaking the throne, King Charles II demanded he face the right on his coins, and the tradition stuck – each monarch turns their back on the one before.
So far this year, 120m coins have been minted featuring the Queen. Before the end of the year, 10m coins featuring the king’s image will roll off the production line.
Collectors recommend if you are lucky enough to find one, hang on to it – because come January the date will change to 2024 and 2023 coins could become rare.
Collectors like Wayne Corbin, who came to witness the unveiling, thought the design by the Royal Mint in London was “reasonable enough” – but he was more interested in what would appear on the back in coming releases.
“It’s a nice enough design,” he said. “But the head is consistently on one side. It’s the back that changes and that’s what you watch for.”
Collectors took Thursday’s event seriously, even asking questions in the press conference about future $2 coin collections, which were duly answered by Leigh.
But would King Charles appear on the 5 cent coin – which is the subject of debate over whether it should be phased out? Well again, that depends on demand. And the phasing out of the echidna isn’t as simple as the 1 and 2 cent coins because “rounding issues” become a bit more complicated when you’re dealing in 5s and 10s.
So for now, King Charles III will grace the largest gold coin and will probably appear on the $2 before long. You might see a 50 cent silver coin.
But from there, things look a little less certain as we turn more and more away from cash. Charles’s mother had six different effigies cast on Australian coins during her 70-year reign. Have we just witnessed the last unveiling of a new monarch on a coin? Time will tell, but don’t bet your bottom dollar on it just yet.
• This article was amended on 5 October 2023. An earlier version referenced Australia potentially leaving the Commonwealth instead of potentially becoming a republic.
