Plan B Forum

The Royal seal is a frequent sight on items such as tomato ketchup and perfume - and for the last century or so the monarch, their consort and heir have issued their own warrants.

When a grantor dies, any Royal Warrants they issued become void and the company has two years to stop using the Royal Arms.

BBC raises urgent question for Heinz.

Do they pay the royal family/monarch for that right? If so, it's not a bad business.

I heard yesterday a journalist from Australia speaking of this sort of thing. QEII's picture or name is on all the forms of money, stamps and lots of other stuff, like these 'by appointment' things. As a young stamp collector, I remember looking at a stamp from Canada and wondering if whoever decides that sort of thing had intentionally chosen a picture of the Queen that made her look particularly ugly. I have an umbrella from England that says 'By Appointment to H M Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother' and the name of the company. She died in 2002 at age 102.

snailgate.

I have a few old coins that show George VI's profile on them, and were I to take them back to Canada or England, I'm sure they'd still spend without anyone so much as batting an eye.  Same with all the coins and stamps that have Lizzie's image on them.

Regarding the Royal Warrant packaging saying, "By Appointment to HRM Elizabeth II", I'm sure there are some people who will collect and hold onto to some of them, in much the same way people here in the USA collect things like Wheaties boxes with the various athletes' pictures on them (I'll admit that I'm still holding onto a couple of unused paperboard USPS 'Priority Mail' mailing envelopes that celebrate Lance Armstrong and the USPS Cycling Team).  Other than that, Chuckie III will probably renew many of them; the label-makers will have to change two words (from 'HER' to 'HIS' and 'Queen' to 'King'), and life will go on.

And snail ... I believe they used whatever was the "0fficial Portrait" at the time, and as she aged there were several of them, although with regard to postage stamps they eventually decided that a mere silhouette of the Queen would be sufficient.  It is interesting, though, to go through pictures of old banknotes and see the differences in the portraits from, say, the 1960s when she became the first English monarch to have their image on paper currency, on through her reign to the current round of five- and ten-quid notes now in circulation.

-"BB"-

George V certainly had his image on paper currency - I don't know if it went earlier than him but Victoria of course had her image on stamps in 1840, when the Penny Black and the Twopenny Blue were issued.

To stamp collectors the portraits of QE2 are known as the Wilding Head and the Machin Head. (Named after the designers.). AFAIK the Machin Head was first in use in the sixties and is still is use now. (Well I assume they stopped using it as of Thursday.) I'm sure (but don't know) that they have a Charles head all ready to go.

And PS your old George VI coins won't work in the UK which went decimal in 1981, abandoning the old shillings and pence divisions the pound. When I was a kid in the 60s Victorian coins in your change were by no means uncommon. I did once get an 1860 penny - well worn - in my change which was legal tender but already 100+ years old. That old was unusual and I kept it and I probably still have it in the basement somewhere.

Not so sure about the name. Looks like 'Charles Ill". Could cause panic

Charlie on banknotes is nothing new.