Monarch Portraits - With Crown And Without
Coffee's For Closers
on stuff I happen to have laying around...
On some UK items (1916 Florin and 1920s-30s Threepences) George V
isn't wearing any crown.
On some other items (1919 Australian Florin, and 1930s New
Zealand full range) he is wearing a large crown. It seems to be
the same portrait used for AU and NZ.
His successor, George VI, isn't wearing any crown on New Zealand
items from his reign.
Elizabeth II is wearing a crown on currently circulating coins
from all three countries. However, her first portrait on NZ
coins (in the 1950s) appears to have a laurel wreath instead of a
crown.
Is there any significance to any of this?
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Peter Irwin
> I was comparing some portraits of UK/Commonwealth monarchs, just
> on stuff I happen to have laying around...
>
> On some UK items (1916 Florin and 1920s-30s Threepences) George V
> isn't wearing any crown.
>
> On some other items (1919 Australian Florin, and 1930s New
> Zealand full range) he is wearing a large crown. It seems to be
> the same portrait used for AU and NZ.
I think New Zealand had the Percy Metcalfe head of George V
(Also used on the 1935 Canadian Dollar) while most other
places got the Bertram MacKennal version. The two look sort
of similar but they are actually different designs.
Colonies got the crowned version. The rule didn't exist for the
1858-1859 Province of Canada coinage, but the rule seems to have
been fairly strictly applied from the 1870s till the 1960s.
The Victoria 5 cent silver coins of Canada are an odd exception
to this - they have the 1858 Province of Canada head.
>
> His successor, George VI, isn't wearing any crown on New Zealand
> items from his reign.
The Statute of Westminster 1931 made the Dominions legally
equal to Britain in status. When George VI became king in 1937,
Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand got the bareheaded
version because George VI was king of those places independently
of his status as King of Great Britain. In theory New Zealand
coinage could have been bareheaded from the start, but no one seems
to have realized this at the time.
George VI colonial coins generally got a crowned head by
Percy Metcalfe, while Imperial and Dominion coinages had the
bare head by Humphrey Paget. Newfoundland coins had the
crowned head while Canadian coins had the bare head.
> Elizabeth II is wearing a crown on currently circulating coins
> from all three countries. However, her first portrait on NZ
> coins (in the 1950s) appears to have a laurel wreath instead of a
> crown.
The rule seems to have been dropped in the 1960s.>
Peter
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pir...@ktb.net
>
>