King Charles III: The first stamps depicting the monarch unveiled

CNN Business
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The first stamps depicting King Charles III were unveiled on Wednesday by the royal mailthe British Postal Service.

The king is captured in profile, bareheaded, looking to the left. The standard first class stamp will feature the portrait on a plain purple background.

“Glad the Royal Mail is using my effigy of King Charles for their final stamps”, designer Martin Jennings tweetedadding that the portrait was first created for new coins depicting the monarch.

The stamps will go on general sale from April 4.

“The advice we were given was not to try to be too smart or to move in a different direction, but rather to maintain that traditional image that we are all very used to,” David Gold said. , Director of External Affairs and Policy. to the Royal Mail, said, according to Reuters.

Queen Victoria was the first monarch to appear on a postage stamp, appearing on the world’s first-ever stamp, known as the Penny Black, in 1840.

Five other British monarchs have appeared on stamps since then, most recently Queen Elizabeth II, whose portrait has become an iconic image, reproduced by artists such as Andy Warhol.

Coins featuring King Charles III entered circulation in December, while new banknotes are expected to be in use by mid-2024 as the UK begins to introduce the image of the new king following the death of his mother in September.