The Intricate Protocol That Will Be Followed When Queen Elizabeth II Passes Away

A royal episode of the animated series Half as Interesting explains the intricate protocol that will be set in motion once Queen Elizabeth II passes away and the phrase “London Bridge is down” is communicated. From that point all notification processes and procedures will be dutifully followed in specific order. The media will follow their instructions and the country will engage in a day of mourning. The Queen’s funeral is expected to cost over 8 billion dollars and will trigger the pressing need to re-mint all currency bearing her image .

The bank of England has over 3.6 billion individual banknotes in circulation each of which displays
the image of the queen. Each note costs about 5 cents to produce, so re-minting the entire currency stock would cost close to $200 million dollars. But the UK isn’t the only country that would need to reprint their currency. Worldwide there are 35 countries in total with the queen’s image on their money. A conservative estimate of the cost to re-mint all of those different currencies in all of those different countries would be about $1 billion.

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.