The £1 Coin & Banknote Set

The collectable set includes a UK ‘round pound’ dated 1983 featuring a reverse design by Eric Sewell, a 12-sided UK £1 coin dated 2016 featuring a reverse design by David Pearce, and a Bank of England £1 Series D banknote featuring a design by Harry Eccleston.

11 facts about the £1

• The earliest ancestor of the £1 can be traced back to 1489, when Henry VII introduced the Sovereign – made of solid gold and worth 20 shillings, this is considered England’s very first £1 coin
• The Sovereign, nominally valued at £1, was devalued and revalued several times in the medieval period. It was replaced in the reign of James I by another gold coin called the unite, and again in the reign of Charles II by the guinea. Each of these coins is part of the ancestral tree of the modern £1 coin.
• By the end of the eighteenth-century, and in reaction to wartime hoarding, gold was needed to finance wars with France, leading the Bank of England to introduce an alternative to the gold coins in 1797: the £1 banknote.
• The Sovereign returned in 1817 following a review of Britain’s coinage after the Battle of Waterloo, with its well-known St. George and the Dragon design by Italian designer Benedetto Pistrucci.
• By 1915 gold was no longer a part of the nation’s circulating coinage. £1 banknotes were again issued in its place, and the government encouraged people to use them in place of gold coins, which were needed for the war effort.
• Over 443 million ‘round pound’ coins were minted in 1983, the first year the modern pound coin was introduced.
• The first design to feature on the ‘round pound’ introduced in 1983 was The Royal Arms of the United Kingdom.
• Four bridges have featured on the reverse designs of the round pound: the Forth Railway bridge, the Menai bridge, the Egyptian Arch bridge and the Millennium bridge.
• The 12-sided £1 introduced in 2016 saw almost 650 million coins minted in its first year
• The current 12-sided coin is a symbol of cutting-edge technology and includes a hidden high-security feature to prevent counterfeiting. It is considered the most secure coin in circulation today.
• 2023 will mark the 40th anniversary of the modern £1 coin and a new reverse (tails) design by Kenyan artist Michael Armitage will be released into circulation to mark the occasion. The design will celebrate the people of Britain and our diverse culture.

Director of Collector Services Rebecca Morgan holds 1983 Round Pound and 2016 GBP1 coin with GBP1 banknote

Rebecca Morgan, Director of Collector Services at The Royal Mint said, “There is something truly special about the £1; its ancestor, the sovereign, is one of our collectors’ favourites and as the original maker of coins, The Royal Mint has had the pleasure of seeing the £1 evolve over the years. The £1 coin is a symbol of Britain that is recognised around the world as well as being one of the nation’s most iconic coins. This collectable set captures three different iterations of the £1 and showcases its fascinating history and evolution over the years.”

For more information, please visit The Royal Mint’s – The £1 Coin & Banknote Set | The Royal Mint

04.07.22 – Royal Mint – Picture shows Rebecca Morgan, Director of Collector Services at the Royal Mint with the new collectors one pound coin (£1) which is being released alongside a one pound note.

The Royal Mint has launched a collectable 50p to celebrate the life and work of Alan Turing for the first time on official UK coin, available in gold, silver and base metal from Monday 4 July.

Alan Turing’s achievements range from formulating ground-breaking theories in the fields of computing, mathematics and biology to ingenious codebreaking during the Second World War.

The life and work of the ‘father of computing’ inspires the new 50p design by experienced coin artists Matt Dent and Christian Davies. The reverse side of the coin features the British scientist’s name alongside a representation of the Bombe machine used during World War II. In a special nod to his work, the designers have incorporated hidden word sequences as part of the 50p design, representing a Turing quote and significant location, as well as the designers’ initials.

The coin made to honour Turing’s legacy is the final release in the Innovation is Science 50p series, which recognises some of history’s greatest scientific minds including Charles Babbage, John Logie Baird, Rosalind Franklin and Stephen Hawking, and the Discovery of Insulin.

The sixth and final release is an enduring piece of art celebrating work that has left an undeniable mark in the field of science, made with British craftsmanship and innovation at the home of precious metals.

Nicola Howell, Chief Commercial Officer at The Royal Mint said: “Alan Turing was a scientific innovator whose work shaped Britain and it is fitting that his life and achievements will be commemorated for the first time on a collectable 50p. Made at the home of precious metals, where we have a rich heritage of British craftsmanship and innovation, the collectable Alan Turing coin will honour the father of computing in a range of gold, silver and base metal finishes. The release is the sixth and final 50p in the Innovation in Science collection and the design by Matt Dent and Christian Davies concludes the series brilliantly by incorporating hidden messages as part of the design, which we know is popular with collectors of the science series.”

The Royal Mint’s latest release is supported by Sir Dermot Turing, nephew of Alan Turing. Speaking of the collaboration and the commemorative coin, he said: “I am delighted with The Royal Mint’s new Alan Turing coin. It is impressive how much effort they have gone to in checking the historical background, and the attractive design they have come up with perfectly encapsulates his genius and achievements.”

The Life and Work of Alan Turing coin is available at The Royal Mint, where you can also find out more about the Innovation in Science series.

The Royal Mint has today revealed an extremely limited edition 10oz silver proof coin featuring the portrait of James 1 as part of the British Monarchs range launched earlier this year.

The seventeenth-century monarch appears on this new coin in the same classic design that would have featured on the coins of the Jacobean era. Whilst the design first appeared on British coinage more than 400 years ago, this coinage portrait has been faithfully recreated as close to the original as possible using state-of-the-art technology.

Rebecca Morgan, Director of Collector Services at The Royal Mint said: “There is strong appeal for collectors with this coin series. There are very few high-quality examples of coinage from the Stuart period, and they are coveted by collectors for their iconic design and rarity and the effigies have been faithfully recreated in fine detail using state-of-the-art technology and numismatic processes. People love to collect the coins of different monarchs, and this series gives the chance for collectors to add key monarchs to complete their collections.”

For more information about the James I 2022 coins please visit The Royal Mint website.