Episode 3233
Young Head coinage
Thu, 2026-Mar-12 00:13 UTC
Length - 2:26
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.
The featured article for Thursday, 12 March 2026, is Young Head coinage.
The Young Head coinage consists of the issues of British coins with an obverse bust of Queen Victoria first used in 1838 while Victoria was still a teenager. Designed by William Wyon, the bust remained on some denominations of British coins until 1887, by which time she was almost 70 years of age and had ceased to resemble her depiction. Wyon's bust of Victoria also appeared on coinage for British dependencies.
The young queen sat for Wyon multiple times in August and September 1837. Wyon then created his coinage portrait of her, which was approved in February 1838. Production with the portrait began later that year; some of the new issues had reverses by Wyon, others by Jean Baptiste Merlen. The new issue produced generally favourable reactions, especially the Una and the Lion reverse used for the five-pound piece.
The Wyon portrait of Victoria proved to be a favourite of hers, and because of that continued on the coinage even after she no longer resembled it. It was replaced on the penny and its fractions when the copper coinage was replaced with bronze in the 1860s, but continued on some of the gold and silver coinage. It was finally superseded by the Jubilee coinage in 1887. Wyon's portrait was imitated or reproduced from the time of its issue, and both the portrait and the Una reverse appeared on British commemorative coins in 2019.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:13 UTC on Thursday, 12 March 2026.
For the full current version of the article, see Young Head coinage on Wikipedia.
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Until next time, I'm long-form Ruth.
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