The Queen's Coins

Bill writes: For our visitors, I thought I'd lay out the English coinage. Where we Americans have a dollar, half-dollar, quarter, dime, nickel, and penny, and only typically use the latter four, the English have eight denominations and use them all. I've laid them out in two rows in the photo below. From left to right with the top row first, they are the two-pound coin (both in size and weight), one pound, 50 pence, 20 pence, 10 pence, 5 pence, 2 pence, and 1 pence. Next year, they are supposed to come out with a 5-pound coin. God help the British pocket, as I expect you could use the new coin as a fishing weight, and it's going to represent a boon in the trousers-repair trade.



The astute observer will notice that the mug on each of these is that of good Queen Bess. God bless her, but she must have had a self-image problem for which the Bank of England is now helping her compensate. Probably too many years of the kids in class teasing her during her formative years, asking, "So who do you think you are, the Queen of England?" And her saying some queenly equivalent of "Damn straight!"

However, the designers at the royal mint had the last laugh, as they update the coins regularly with her likeness. I suspect that these designers are the very same lads and lasses that went to grade school with the Queen. As you can see by the next picture, it's either that or the millenium was especially hard on her, as the poor dear certainly aged between 1997 and 2001. In the former, she's quite the frisky boots, looking like Windsor's equivalent of a page-three girl, whereas the next four years turned her visage into something more pugnacious, even Churchillian, while her head seems to have swallowed her crown, like a band that's been tied too long around a growing tree. Such is the burden of duty.