First Coins Featuring King Charles III Put Into Circulation

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th December, 2022) The first coins bearing the image of King Charles III were put into circulation in the United Kingdom on Thursday, The Guardian reported.

In September, the Royal Mint unveiled the official coin effigy of King Charles III, which was designed by British sculptor Martin Jennings.

A total of 4.9 million 50 pence coins will enter circulation via 9,452 Post Office branches throughout December. Coins will be given as change when customers make purchases, according to the newspaper.

"The Royal Mint has been trusted to make coins bearing the monarch's effigy for over 1,100 years and we are proud to continue this tradition into the reign of King Charles III," the director of collector services at the Royal Mint, Rebecca Morgan, was quoted as saying by the news outlet.

In keeping with a tradition dating back centuries to the 1660-1685 reign of Charles II, where each monarch faces the alternate direction to their predecessor, the portrait of Charles III faces to the left, in the opposite direction to the late queen. Elizabeth II. The reverse of the coin features a design that includes the four quarters of the Royal Arms depicted within a shield. There are emblems of the four nations between each shield � a rose for England, a thistle for Scotland, a leek for Wales and a shamrock for Northern Ireland.