UK: New coins for 2016 to feature Shakespeare (a skull, rose, sword and crown)

[Chad]

Just thought i'd share the new designs from the Royal Mint...

As per below, the selected imagery for the new coins will represent the great fire of London, WWII WWI and Shakespeare’s works and death as well as the works of a Beatrix Potter - known for:

Helen Beatrix Potter (British English /ˈbiː.ətrɪks/, North American English /ˈbiː.trɪks/,[1] 28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943) was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist best known for her children's books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

The Skull, Rose and dagger are apparently intended to represent Shakespeare - the skull probably from Hamlet, or the tragic plots in his plays.

All fairly morbid if you ask me.

New coins for 2016 to feature Shakespeare and Beatrix Potter

1 January 2016
From the section UK 340 comments

Image copyright PA
A skull and rose, and a crown and sword respectively represent the tragedies and histories of Shakespeare

Images representing Shakespeare plays and Beatrix Potter tales will be among those featuring on coins in 2016, the Royal Mint has said.

The coins are meant to give a snapshot of Britain over the past 1,000 years.

The histories, comedies and tragedies of Shakespeare will be depicted on £2 coins, 400 years after his death.

A 50p coin will honour Beatrix Potter to mark the 150 years since her birth, while another commemorates the Battle of Hastings, 950 years ago.

A picture of the Great Fire of London will be embossed onto a £2 coin to mark the event's 350th anniversary.
'Our history'

The Royal Mint's five-year programme to mark the centenary of World War One will continue with a £2 coin remembering the community pride that fuelled the rise of the "Pals" battalions, and will bear a design reminiscent of the art deco styling of the time.

Each coin bears the fifth definitive portrait of the Queen by Royal Mint engraver Jody Clark.
Image copyright PA
Image caption The latest definitive portrait of the Queen - created to mark her becoming the longest reigning monarch in British history - appears on all seven new coins

Anne Jessopp, director of commemorative coin at the Royal Mint, said: "It is always exciting to see the new year's designs revealed, commemorating the moments that matter, and revisiting some of the great events and stories from our history.

"The British public should start to see these coins appearing in their change from spring 2016."

More imagery:

 

[Mal7]

Myself I like the Shakespeare coin design. The skull is a reminder of our own mortality. The rose is perhaps most often quoted in the passage from Romeo and Juliet:

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_rose_by_any_other_name_would_smell_as_sweet

The crown symbolizes the reigning Monarch, king or queen. I think Shakespeare's plays depict that the monarch's position is not some divinely-appointed position, as reigning monarchs would like their subjects to believe, but rather the result of behind-the-scenes plots and counter-plots, with politics as the naked struggle-for-power of various factions. This pie-chart shows the prevalence of deaths by stabbing in Shakespeare's plays, and hence the appropriateness of the dagger:

(chart from http://www.openculture.com/2016/01/74-ways-characters-die-in-shakespeares-plays-shown-in-a-handy-infographic.html )