The British one pound (£1)
coin
A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...
is a denomination of
sterling coinage. Its obverse bears the Latin engraving ELIZABETH II D G REG () F D () meaning, 'Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, Queen,
Defender of the Faith'.
[ Proclamation of 28 May 1953 made in accordance with the Royal Titles Act 1953.] It has featured the profile of
Queen Elizabeth II since the original coin's introduction on 21 April 1983. Four different portraits of the Queen have been used, with the latest design by
Jody Clark being introduced in 2015. The design on the reverse side of the current, 12-sided coin features four emblems to represent each of the nations of the United Kingdom — the English
rose
A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...
, the
leek for Wales, the Scottish
thistle
Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterised by leaves with sharp prickles on the margins, mostly in the family Asteraceae. Prickles can also occur all over the planton the stem and on the flat parts of the leaves ...
, and the
shamrock for Northern Ireland, also two or three
oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...
leaves — emerging from a single 5-branched stem within a crown. In May 2022 the Royal Mint announced that the Kenyan-born artist
Michael Armitage is designing a new £1 coin which will be issued in 2023 and will celebrate the "history of the UK in the 21st century".
The original, round £1 coin replaced the
Bank of England £1 note
The Bank of England £1 note was a sterling banknote. After the ten shilling note was withdrawn in 1970, it became the smallest denomination note issued by the Bank of England. The one pound note was issued by the Bank of England for the first ...
, which ceased to be issued at the end of 1984 and was removed from circulation on 11 March 1988, though still redeemable at the Bank's offices, like all English banknotes. One-pound notes continue to be issued in
Jersey
Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label= Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the l ...
,
Guernsey and the
Isle of Man
)
, anthem = "O Land of Our Birth"
, image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg
, image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg
, mapsize =
, map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe
, map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green)
in Europe ...
, and by the
Royal Bank of Scotland, but the pound coin is much more widely used. A new, dodecagonal (
12-sided) design of coin was introduced on 28 March 2017
and both new and old versions of the one pound coin circulated together until the older design was withdrawn from circulation on 15 October 2017. After that date, the older coin could only be redeemed at banks, although some retailers announced they would continue to accept it for a limited time, and they remained in use in the Isle of Man.
The main purpose of redesigning the coin was to combat counterfeiting. As of March 2014 there were an estimated 1,553 million of the original nickel-brass coins in circulation, of which the
Royal Mint estimated in 2014 that just over 3% were
counterfeit.
The new coin, in contrast, is
bimetallic like the current
£2 coin, and features an undisclosed hidden security feature called "iSIS" (Integrated Secure Identification Systems).
The current 12-sided pound coins are
legal tender
Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in ...
to any amount when offered in repayment of a debt; however, the coin's legal tender status is not normally relevant for everyday transactions.
Design
![One pound head side](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/One_pound_head_side.jpg)
To date, four different portraits of Elizabeth II have appeared on the
obverse
Obverse and its opposite, reverse, refer to the two flat faces of coins and some other two-sided objects, including paper money, flags, seals, medals, drawings, old master prints and other works of art, and printed fabrics. In this usage, ...
. For the first three of these, the inscription was ,
where 2013 is replaced by the year of minting. The fourth design, unveiled in March 2015,
[ expanded the inscription slightly to . The 12-sided design, introduced in March 2017, reverted to
In summary:
* In 1983 and 1984 the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by ]Arnold Machin
Arnold Machin OBE, R.A., FRSS (; 30 September 1911 – 9 March 1999) was a British artist, sculptor, and coin and postage stamp designer.
Life
Machin was born Stoke-on-Trent in 1911. He started work at the age of 14 as an apprentice china pa ...
appeared on the obverse, in which the Queen wears the "Girls of Great Britain and Ireland" Tiara.
* Between 1985 and 1997 the portrait by Raphael Maklouf
Raphael David Maklouf (born 10 December 1937) is a British sculptor, best known for designing an effigy of Queen Elizabeth II used on the coins of many Commonwealth nations.
Maklouf was born in Jerusalem, to a Jewish family; his father was S ...
was used, in which the Queen wears the George IV State Diadem
The George IV State Diadem, officially the Diamond Diadem, is a crown that was made in 1820 for King George IV. The diadem is worn by queens and queens consort in procession to coronations and State Openings of Parliament. It has been featured in ...
.
* Between 1998 and 2015 the portrait by Ian Rank-Broadley
Ian Rank-Broadley FRBS (born 1952) is a British sculptor who has produced many acclaimed works, among which are several designs for British coinage and the memorial statue of Princess Diana at Kensington Palace in London unveiled on her 60th ...
was used, again featuring the tiara
A tiara (from la, tiara, from grc, τιάρα) is a jeweled head ornament. Its origins date back to ancient Greece and Rome. In the late 18th century, the tiara came into fashion in Europe as a prestigious piece of jewelry to be worn by women ...
, with a signature-mark below the portrait.
* In 2015 the portrait by Jody Clark was introduced, in which the Queen wears the George IV State Diadem, with a signature-mark below the portrait.
In August 2005 the Royal Mint launched a competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indiv ...
to find new reverse designs for all circulating coins apart from the £2 coin. The winner, announced in April 2008, was Matthew Dent, whose designs were gradually introduced into the circulating British coinage from mid-2008. The designs for the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p coins depict sections of the Royal Shield that form the whole shield when placed together. The shield in its entirety was featured on the £1 coin. The coin's obverse remained unchanged.
The design of the reverse of the original coin was changed each year from 1983 to 2008 to show, in turn, an emblem representing the UK, Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
, Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
, and England, together with an appropriate edge inscription. This edge inscription could frequently be "upside-down" (when obverse is facing upward). From 2008, national-based designs were still minted, but alongside the new standard version and no longer in strict rotation. The inscription ONE POUND appeared on all reverse designs.
In common with non-commemorative £2 coins, the round £1 coin (except 2004–07 and the 2010–11 "capital cities" designs) had a mint mark
A mint mark is a letter, symbol or an inscription on a coin indicating the mint where the coin was produced. It should not be confused with a mintmaster mark which is the mark of the mintmaster.
History
Mint marks were first developed to locate ...
: a small crosslet found on the milled edge that represents Llantrisant in South Wales, where the Royal Mint has been based since 1968.
The reverse of the new 12-sided, bimetallic pound coin, introduced on 28 March 2017, was chosen by a public design competition
A design competition or design contest is a competition in which an entity solicits design proposals from the public for a specified purpose.
Architecture
An architectural design competition solicits architects to submit design proposals for a b ...
. The competition to design the reverse of this coin was opened in September 2014. It was won in March 2015 by 15-year-old David Pearce from Walsall
Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre in the West Midlands County, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located north-west of Birmingham, east of Wolverhampton and from Lichfield.
Walsall is th ...
, and unveiled by Chancellor George Osborne
George Gideon Oliver Osborne (born Gideon Oliver Osborne; 23 May 1971) is a former British politician and newspaper editor who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and as First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016 in the ...
during his Budget announcement. The design features a rose, leek, thistle
Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterised by leaves with sharp prickles on the margins, mostly in the family Asteraceae. Prickles can also occur all over the planton the stem and on the flat parts of the leaves ...
and shamrock bound by a crown.
Status as legal tender
Current £1 coins are legal tender
Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in ...
to any amount. However, "legal tender" has a very specific and narrow meaning which relates only to the repayment of debt to a creditor, not to everyday shopping or other transactions. Specifically, coins of particular denominations are said to be "legal tender" when a creditor must by law accept them in redemption of a debt. The term does not mean – as is often thought – that a shopkeeper has to accept a particular type of currency in payment. Shopkeepers are under no obligation to accept any specific type of payment, whether legal tender or not; conversely they have the discretion to accept any payment type they wish.
Mintage figures
Round coin
''Mintage figures below represent the number of coins of each date released for circulation. Mint sets have been produced since 1982; where mintages on or after that date indicate 'none', there are examples contained within those sets.''
All years except 1998 and 1999 have been issued into circulation, although the number issued has varied enormously – 1983, 1984 and 1985 in particular had large mintages to facilitate the changeover from paper notes, while some years such as 1988 are only rarely seen (although 1988 is more noticeable as it has a unique reverse). Production since 1997 has been reduced, thanks to the introduction of the circulating two pound coin.
The final round coins minted for 2016 and the 2015 Shield of the Royal Arms 5th portrait did not enter circulation, as they were only available through commemorative sets. These were the shield from the Royal Coat of Arms by Matthew Dent, and a design by Gregory Cameron, Bishop of St Asaph, of four heraldic beasts.
12-sided coin
Counterfeiting
During later years of the round pound's use, Royal Mint surveys estimated the proportion of counterfeit £1 coins in circulation. This was estimated at 3.04% in 2013, a rise from 2.74%. The figure previously announced in 2012 was 2.86%, following the prolonged rise from 0.92% in 2002–2003 to 0.98% in 2004, 1.26% in 2005, 1.69% in 2006, 2.06% in 2007, 2.58% in 2008, 2.65% in 2009, 3.07% in 2010 and 3.09% in 2011. Figures were generally reported in the following year; in 2008 (as reported in 2009), the highest levels of counterfeits were in Northern Ireland (3.6%) and South East England and London (2.97%), with the lowest being in North West England. Coin testing companies estimated in 2009 that the actual figure was about twice the Mint's estimate, suggesting that the Mint was underplaying the figures so as not to undermine confidence in the coin. It is illegal to pass on counterfeit currency knowingly; the official advice is to hand it in, with details of where received, to the police, who will retain it and investigate. One article suggested that "given that fake coins are worthless, you will almost certainly be better off not even looking".[ The recipient also has recourse against the supplier in such cases.
Counterfeits are put into circulation by dishonest people, then circulated inadvertently by others who are unaware; in many cases banks do not check, and circulate counterfeits. In 2011 the BBC television programme '']Fake Britain
''Fake Britain'' is a British consumer rights programme, presented by Dominic Littlewood between 2010 and 2012 and again from 2017 to 2019, and by Matt Allwright from 2013 to 2016.
The programme is broadcast on weekdays in a daytime slot, with ...
'' withdrew 1,000 £1 coins from each of five major banks and found that each batch contained between 32 and 38 counterfeits; the Mint estimated that about 31 per 1,000 £1 coins were counterfeit.Fake Britain
''Fake Britain'' is a British consumer rights programme, presented by Dominic Littlewood between 2010 and 2012 and again from 2017 to 2019, and by Matt Allwright from 2013 to 2016.
The programme is broadcast on weekdays in a daytime slot, with ...
, series 2 episode 1, first broadcast on BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
TV on 16 May 2011 Some of the counterfeits were found by automated machinery, others could be detected only by expert visual inspection.
In July 2010, following speculation that the Royal Mint would have to consider replacing £1 coins with a new design because of the fakes, bookmakers Paddy Power
Paddy Power is an Irish gambling company founded in 1988. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. The business is split into two divisions, UK Ireland (UKI) and International. UKI operations ...
offered odds of 6/4 (bet £4 to win £6, plus the £4 stake back; decimal odds
Odds provide a measure of the likelihood of a particular outcome. They are calculated as the ratio of the number of events that produce that outcome to the number that do not. Odds are commonly used in gambling and statistics.
Odds also have ...
of 2.5), that the £1 coin would be removed from circulation.
Some counterfeits were of poor quality, with obviously visible differences (less sharply defined, lacking intricate details, edge milling and markings visibly wrong). Many better counterfeits can be detected by comparing the orientation of the obverse and reverse—they should match in genuine modern UK coins, but very often did not in counterfeit round £1.[ The design on the reverse must be correct for the stamped year (e.g., a 1996 coin should have a Celtic cross). It was difficult to manufacture round pounds with properly-produced edges; the milling (grooves) was often incomplete or poor and the inscription (often "DECUS ET TUTAMEN") sometimes poorly produced or in the wrong typeface.][ A shiny coin with less wear than its date suggests is also suspect, although it may be a genuine coin that has rarely been used.][
Counterfeit coins are made by different processes including casting, stamping, electrotyping, and copying with a ]pantograph
A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...
or spark erosion. In a 2009 survey, 99% of fake £1 coins found in cash centres were made of a nickel-brass, of which three fifths contained some lead and a fifth were of a very similar alloy to that used by the Royal Mint. The remaining 1% were made of simple copper-zinc brass, or lead or tin, or both. Those made of lead or tin may have a gold-coloured coating; counterfeits made of acrylic plastic containing metal powder to increase weight were occasionally found.[
The final 'round pounds' were minted in December 2015; the replacement, a new 12-sided design, was introduced in 2017, the earliest dated as 2016. The coin has a 12-edged shape, similar to the pre-decimal brass threepence coin; it has roughly the same size as the previous £1 coin, and is bi-metallic like most £2 coins. The new design is intended to make counterfeiting more difficult, and also has an undisclosed hidden security feature called "iSIS" (Integrated Secure Identification Systems),] thought to be a code embedded in the top layer of metal on the obverse of the coin, visible only under a specific wavelength of ultraviolet
Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation ...
light.
Current two-pound coins, being bi-metallic (excluding some rarely tendered commemorative issues), remain harder to counterfeit than the round pound was; such counterfeits would often easily seen to have wrong colours.
Other pound coins that entered circulation
While the round pound was operational, others that entered circulation, although not legal tender
Legal tender is a form of money that courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything which when offered ("tendered") in ...
in the UK, were some £1 coins of British Crown Dependencies, Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
and UK South Atlantic Overseas Territories. Most coins of these territories, in all denominations, were of the same size and composition as a UK equivalent and most bore the same portraits of the UK monarch. After the UK replaced its round pound coins, none of these territories rushed to do so, except Gibraltar, which continues to use Gibraltarian pound coins as legal tender as well as the new UK pound coins.
Further reading
In an April 1993 ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' article "Real Britannia", Julian Barnes
Julian Patrick Barnes (born 19 January 1946) is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with '' The Sense of an Ending'', having been shortlisted three times previously with '' Flaubert's Parrot'', ''England, England'', and '' A ...
describes the meetings to choose the 1994–1997 reverse designs. This is reprinted in his book ''Letters from London'' as "Britannia's New Bra Size".
See also
* Banknotes of the pound sterling
Sterling banknotes are the banknotes in circulation in the United Kingdom and its related territories, denominated in pounds sterling (symbol: £; ISO 4217 currency code: GBP; traditional abbreviation: Stg.).
Sterling banknotes are official ...
* Coin counterfeiting
Coin counterfeiting of valuable antique coins is common; modern high-value coins are also counterfeited and circulated.[Coins of the pound sterling
The standard circulating coinage of the United Kingdom, British Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories is denominated in pennies and pounds sterling ( symbol "£", commercial GBP), and ranges in value from one penny sterling t ...]
* Sovereign — gold coin with a (nominal) value of £1
References
Source
* ''Coincraft's Standard Catalogue English & UK Coins 1066 to Date'', Richard Lobel, Coincraft.
External links
Royal Mint – £1 coin
Royal Mint – the new pound coin
One Pound, Coin Type from United Kingdom – Online Coin Club
{{British coinage
Coins of the United Kingdom
Currencies introduced in 1983
One-base-unit coins