Beads and denticles on coins

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Beading on the obverse of a UK penny.

Beads are the continuous line of circles (or dots or pearls) that follow the circumference of a coin along its outer rim.

They are sculpted and therefore raised slightly above the surface of the coin.

Beads appear in different sizes and shapes, and with different amounts of spacing between them.


Beads were originally added to coins as a security feature, to make them harder to forge.

They are not however regarded as necessary and do not appear on all coins.

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An Irish half penny with dentillations around the rim.

Dentillations (meaning literally 'little teeth' from Latin: dens, a tooth) are raised lines or notches that appear around the circumference of a coin along its outer rim.

They are used as an alternative to beads. Originally they were used as a security feature.

They help differentiate the appearance of a coin from coins with beads and / or from coins with neither beads nor dentillations.

Like beads, they come in different shapes, sizes and spacing.

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Here you see a design where the dentillations go only part of the way around the circumference of the coin.

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On this coin of Qatar and Dubai, there are two sets of beads.

They form an inner and an outer circle.

The outer circle is not a complete circle.

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This UK 2 pound coin has two full sets of beads - inner and outer.

Not all 2 pound coins have the beads, however.

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UK pound coin, 2008.

Before 2008, all the UK standard circulation coins that were round in shape had beading on each side.

After 2008, with the arrival of a new design series, they did not.

Because of this, beads on a coin now look redundant and old-fashioned in my opinion.

Do you agree? Is beading old-fashioned nowadays?

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Denticles on two Ghanaian coins of 1967. Their shape is distinctive.

On the 10 pesewas coin they are larger and protrude further onto the field on the coin.

Denticles are also known as dentillations.

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The dentillations on this Fijian half penny are uniform on each side.

Yet on this shilling they are not. Why?

On this Fijian 1 cent coin, there are dentillations on one side but none on the other. Again - why?

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The dentillations on this collector coin of Papua New Guinea are diamond-shaped.


I understand that denticles is another word for dentillations.

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Canada, 5 cents, 1949.

Here you have denticles on a 12-sided coin.

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The denticles on this Gibraltar penny are quite spaced out. The gaps between them are larger than normal.

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Ceylon, 10 cents, 1944.  A scalloped coin with denticles.

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Sri Lanka, 10 cent, 1975.

Ceylon became Sri Lanka, but it retained the scalloped shape with denticles for its 10 cents coin.

Here the denticles form a distinct inner circle that the older coin lacks.

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We are so used to being coins being circular, that even when a coin is square (or squarish), the design and the legend are often arranged as though the coin were circular.





Here is an example, on a 1941 one cent coin from Malaya.

The orientation of the legends on the obverse and reverse are in conflict.

The reverse has two circles of beads - an inner and an outer circle.

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This heptagonal 50 pence coin from Guernsey - a collector issue - had a bead circle on the reverse but not on the obverse.