THE NEW COINAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 75, 31 March 1937, Page 14

THE NEW COINAGE

DESIGNS BY DULAC

DROPPED BY THE MINT

I am able to announce that the designs for the George VI coins have been entrusted to Mr. Kruger Gray, Mr. T. H. Paget, and Mr. Percy Metcalfe (wrote the London correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian" recently). Mr. Kruger Gray designed the reverses of the George V coins and is also undertaking the reverses oi the new .coins. Mr. Percy Metcalfe was responsible for the beautiful coinage of the .Irish Free State. The head on the obverse of the new coins will be designed by Mr. Paget, and Mr. Metcalfe is doing the King's head wearing the Imperial Crown, which appears on the Indian and colonial coinage. These same artists were chosen to design the Edward VIII coinage, but only after there, had been some altercation on the subject. When at the death of George V the question of . the coinage was being considered by the Mint Committee King Edward VIII expressed a wish for a complete breakaway from the traditional designs of the previous reign and asked for something new and modern in spirit. The Mint Committee therefore asked a number of artists to submit designs embodying the King's wishes. Sir Robert Johnson, the Deputy Master of the Mint, it is gathered, was particularly enthusiastic about the opportunity for introducing a new spirit into the national coinage. DESIGNS BY DULAC. Eventually Mr. Edmund -Dulac, whose design for the King's Poetry Medal of 1935 was considered by Sir George Hill and others to be the best English medal produced in recent years, was told that his designs were approved, and he was commissioned! to proceed with models. Mr. Dulac accordingly produced models of the crown, the half-crown, the florin, shilling, and sixpence, and the die for the reverse of the. half-crown was actually cvt —a design of a sea-horse surrounded by waves and surmounted by the Royal Crown. The reverse of the two-shilling piece showed the rose, shamrock, and thistle growing from a central stem, while that of the shilling was based on an arrangement of wings. The Mint Committee, on second thoughts, presumably shocked by the very novelty for which they had been seeking, then decided that Mr. Dulac's designs were unsuitable on the grounds that they were neither sufficiently British nor sufficiently heraldic. NO BREAK LIKELY. Eventually the reverses of the Edward VIII coins were entrusted to Mr, Kruger Gray, the head on the obverse side to Mr. Paget, and the head wearing the Imperial crown to Mr. Metcalfe—just as they are now to be for the George VI coinage. . If the coinage for the present reign is to follow Mr. Kruger Gray's Edward VIII designs, with the' substitution of a new head on the obverse, we are not likely to find when it is issued any notable break from the spirit of our George V coinage. It is hoped to have a few of the new coins issued by the Coronation, The Indian and colonial coins will not be ready till later. The designs for the Coronation medals have not yet been finally approved by the King, but it is known that, following precedent, these medals will have the effigy of-the King on one side and that of the Queen on the other. They will be issued in the same two sizes as those struck to commemorate George V's Jubilee. *