January 5, 2021, 10:42am
In a world where I’m still starting every email with “I hope you’re well…ish…I mean obviously I hope you’re extremely well but I recognize that’s fairly unlikely at the moment ahahah,” it’s nice to be reminded that there are still low-stakes disputes playing out all over the world. For example: the Royal Mint totally bungled its HG Wells commemorative coin, and it did not escape the notice of the author’s fans!
Wells-heads pointed out that the (coin-sized) coin features two errors: the walking machine from The War of the Worlds, which Wells describes as a “monstrous tripod,” has four legs, and the Invisible Man’s hat is rendered as a top hat, though the hat in the story is “wide-brimmed.”
This isn’t the first time that the Royal Mint has failed to check its work on commemorative tender: just last year, a £10 note misattributed a quote from Pride and Prejudice. Listen, ordinarily my thoughts on this kind of thing would run a bit more toward the “cool it, nerds,” but in These Times, I’m hungry for this kind of low-grade scolding. So, keep it up nerds!
[via The Guardian]