The first carload of no million British-made bas-reliefs of eight-year-old King Mihai of Rumania was being circulated in Bucharest last week. The portraits (see cut) are being struck by the British Royal Mint, 5 million on Rumanian 20-lei (12¢) pieces and 60 million on 5-lei (3¢) coins, all of a base metal which the governments concerned refuse to describe more fully than as a “new alloy.”
Coins denominated the puffin and half-puffin—respectively worth a British penny and half-penny—have just gone into circulation among the 40 dwellers on Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel, also called “Puffin Island.” Both half and whole puffins bear the likeness of Martin Coles Harman, Esq., London merchant, who bought Puffin Island in 1925 and plays at being its king. On the “tails” side of a puffin is the head of a puffin (sea bird with a parrotlike beak and white cheeks). Puffin Islanders also have puffin stamps. red and green, in puffin and half-puffin de nominations, each having a handsome steel engraving of a puffin perched on a rock.
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