Kings With No Coins :)

Some muslim countries have a thing against engraving or depicting people in art or sculpture. I'm not sure what about Saudi Arabia, though, since they have a commemorative (non-circulating, I guess) coin featuring one of their previous kings...

Some "rulers" enjoy very brief periods in "power".
Lesotho being a very good point. The current king of Bhutan does feature on banknotes as does Hamad bin Isa. Tonga is way too recent. Cambodia? Prince (King) Norodom is a nominal figurhead and the actual ruler would much rather feature his portrait on banknotes (coins don't even come into the equation).

Interesting, but they generally do not except for a few instances.

Sorry about posting so late in the game. But I couldn't resist the topic. Plenty of geopolitics involved with why some of these monarchs are not seen on coins.

According to something in Islamic Law, monarchs and other effigies are not to be depicted on coins. Most middle eastern coins don't even depict any kind of animals, also technically not allowed. This hasn't deterred many exceptions over the years, such as the Hashemite kings in Jordan being the very most current. Saudi Arabia and many of the others are more conservative countries than Jordan and are simply following traditional Islamic protocol. The Saudi king does appear on the banknotes, however.

As far as I know, Bhutan has not issued any circulation coins since 1979. And the 1979 issue did not depict a king. Many banknotes of Bhutan currently do depict the current monarch though.

Japan never has depicted emperors on currency.

Malaysian Sultans do occasionally appear on coins, including a commemorative ringgit or two that have made it into general circulation.

Cambodia has also never issued circulating coins with a head of state.

Kind Tupou V stepped down as he felt he wasn't up to task for the job. His brief reign was botched and saw corruption charges and riots. Coins actually have been issued in Tonga during his rein, during 2011 and 2012 but all depict the previous monarch rather than the Fifth. Tonga intends to actually issue a new re-sized coin series sometime this year (2013) following Fiji, and it is supposed to depict the new king.

Lesotho no longer depicts monarchs on coins, there was a coup as Sap mentioned. (actually a coup, a counter coup, then a revolution) Instability also means unpredictability, "someone new could be in charge tomorrow" was the theme of 1990's Lesotho and was probably the original reason for the change.

Coins, and the equipment to produce them, as well as shipping and distributing them... all very expensive. More so than banknotes. The less about them that has to be changed, the better. Smaller countries with less money to kick around have less interest in small details that can cost big, such as coins, so if you can get away with it, why not just order re-strikes with older equipment? Just change the part of the coin die where the date is rather than the whole thing. And mints that produce coins for many foreign countries have gotten very good at overdating. It saves the mint as well as the customer time and money. The only noticeable thing might be very slightly different sizing or lopsidedness on some of the numbers.

And a botched king may not be quite as intent on getting his picture out there as a more successful one. Just a thought.



I'm not very sure about NCLT, but some of these figures might be found on some of these.

Actually, there were a series of bronze and silver coins depicting the Cambodian king in the 1860s - but I don't think any have since then.