After Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles will become the King and he will ascend to the throne of the UK and Commonwealth realms which includes 14 other countries than the United Kingdom. He will now be known as King Charles III.
Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth, many daily used things in the UK have her profile image of her. Some of these objects which have the image of the Queen are:
- Postage Stamps
- Coins
- Banknotes
- Uniforms
- Passports
As King Charles III will hold the royal office from now onwards, there is a possible change in the Profile image of these everyday things in the UK and they will now have the image of King Charles III.
What Will Happen to Stamps After Queen Elizabeth II
All kinds of Postage Stamps in the UK are handled and issued by Royal Mail. All these Stamps have the face of Queen Elizabeth II. In these Stamps, the Queen is wearing a diamond diadem and is shown facing left.
Postage Stamps in the UK have images of the Queen for many years. The first Stamps in the UK had the image of Queen Victoria and they were released in the year 1840.
After about 126 years i.e in 1966, the profile image of these Postage Stamps was changed and the current face of Queen Elizabeth II was printed on them.
According to Royal Mail, since 1966, the face of the Queen has been printed more than 220 billion times on the Postage Stamps. Also, 130 colors have been used since then for the printing of Queen’s Profile Image.
With the reign of King Charles III, there will be a change in the Profile Image on the Stamps and they will now have his Face of him. Although this change is sure, but it will take some time and will not happen immediately.
Are Stamps with Queen’s image Still valid
On 09 Sep 2022, The Royal Mail made an official announcement on its website that all the Postage Stamps in the UK which have the Profile Image of Queen Elizabeth II will not be discontinued immediately, these Stamps can be used till the end of January 2023.
So Old Stamps will be valid till the start of January and anyone who has already purchased old Stamps can use them until that time.
When the existing Stamps are discontinued, then they will have a new design with the Profile Image of King Charles III.
There will be no more production of Old Stamps with Queen’s image. Royal Mail will publish a new series of Postage Stamps, featuring the face of King Charles III.
Regarding, when would a change in the Stamps be made, The Royal Mail said, we will give further details about the Change in Stamps after consulting with Buckingham Palace.
Apart from the Stamps, other postage items that feature Queen Elizabeth II in some form are the Post boxes. These Post boxes include ‘E’ and ‘R’ letters. These letters stand for Elizabeth II and Regina which is the Latin translation of ‘Queen’.
There is a change expected in the “ER” symbol as well and it is likely to be replaced with CR. King Charles revealed this new Cypher on 11 September and it means ‘Charles Rex III’