The Queen appeared on Australian coinage for seven decades. Her image first appeared in 1953 as the young monarch she was.
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When Australia went decimal on February 14, 1966, a new image of her appeared, and so it went on.
As the Queen aged, so did her portrait, five times to be exact, so there were six different pictures of the Queen. They were generous portraits, showing her best side, but they did seem to reflect her age at the time the new coin came out.
King Charles seems to have started differently. He looks younger on the coin than he does in life. Official portraits of him show a decided bald patch at the front. He did once have a sharp parting on the left side of his head (as the portrait on the coins show) but, in real life, that has faded almost to nothing.
If you look at the coins (as you may well do every day from next year when they appear), you see a man you might estimate to be about 60 (Charles is 74).
The image - or "effigy" as it's known in the trade - came from the British Royal Mint. At its Australian unveiling, reporters asked the chief executive of the Royal Australian Mint what age King Charles was when the design was made.
The response of Leigh Gordon was: "The designer Dan Thorne studied a number of different images of the king and certainly started studying the king for a while when he came up with this.
"So, it's a compilation, I guess, various views". He called it a "generic view".
King Charles is facing to his right on the coins. A cynic might say that this view hides the full baldness and emphasises a sharp parting.
But the cynics would be wrong.
The direction was predetermined. "Tradition holds that each British monarch's portrait on coins should face in the opposite direction to their predecessor. George IV faced left, Elizabeth II faced right, and thus we expect Charles III will face left," according to Michael Theophilos of the Australian Catholic University.
The general idea seems to be to make the portrait of a monarch on our coins accurate but flattering - jowls aren't quite as jowly, bald heads aren't quite as bare.
Between 1899 and 1901, the Perth Mint struck coins featuring Queen Victoria. The images were sent from London and one of them was known as the "old head" or "widowed head" showing the queen in old age, complete with a mourning shawl.
"In it, she wears the trappings of royalty - a tiara, earrings, heavy necklace and Garter star," the Britannia Coin Company which deals in old coins says, "but also the signs of age: she's got a double chin and wrinkles around her eyes."
The image of Queen Victoria was basically accurate. You will have your own views on that of King Charles.
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Of course, the habit of making leaders look better on coinage than they do in real life is not new.
It's true that Mao Zedong's image appeared on Chinese currency warts and all. The growth on his chin could have been erased but was kept.
On the other hand, the Chinese despot did appear as a benign father figure when the reality is that he was responsible for millions of deaths.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
