Arnold Machin

Arnold Machin (1911–1999) was born in Stoke-on-Trent and began as an apprentice china painter at Minton and Royal Crown Derby before studying sculpture and later teaching at the RCA. His effigy of the Queen was adopted for the decimal coinage in 1964, and his clay bas-relief formed the basis of the Great Britain definitives – aka 'Machins' – issued from 1967 to 2022 and reproduced well over 200 billion times.