New pound coins in 2017

[Figleaf]

Hype. Zinc is one of the cheapest metals in the world and so is the derivative zinc oxide. A metric ton (1000 kg) of food grade zinc oxide costs from $800 to $1300 fob, depending on the size of the order. Contents vary, but a gram of zinc oxide would have a purchase price of $0.0008 to $0.0013. You can play with those numbers, let the price double or quadruple overnight and find that the effect on the price of foodstuff (primarily breakfast cereals) and medical stuff (primarily sun screens) is affected only in extreme circumstances. I bet the major price component for both is advertising.

Sure, it's different for coins, but if a metal becomes cheap, rather then extremely cheap, either there will be a replacement metal (tin comes to mind) or the difference is marginal.

Peter

[malj1]

I found I had great difficulty getting things galvanised because of the steep rise in the price of zinc and a new price estimate had to be given each time. This would have been five or six years ago as I retired four years ago.

[Pabitra]

When was the last time a British king was seen in a harness?

The last king to die in Battle was Richard III.

One and two-pound coins are made up of as much as 25 per cent zinc

Perhaps still thinking of old mono metallic 2 Pounds. 2 Pounds is bimetallic for quite some time now and the core is Copper Nickel.

Rise in Zinc price could expedite the demise of old 1 Pound coin. The competition for new design will be over by end Oct. Only if they can finalise the design and get Her Majesty's approval, the new 1 Pound could be out in first quarter of 2015 instead of 2017.

[FosseWay]

The last king of anywhere in what is now the British Isles to lead his troops in battle was George II, at the Battle of Dettingen. Still quite a long time ago but considerably more recently than Richard III. He may also be the last monarch to serve in front line forces (whether while king or before) - I'm not sure about that. Queen Elizabeth II got about as close to doing so as a woman could during WW2 and served in the ATS.

And James IV of Scotland died in battle at Flodden in 1513 - he, not Richard, was the last king of anywhere in Britain to die in battle.

[augsburger]

George V was extremely daring, he broke some part of his lower body in the trenches, while monarch, though he was just having a look around.

[Figleaf]

Dettingen is a rather doubtful example. George was king of Britain, but also of Hannover. At Dettingen, he acted in his capacity as king of Hannover. This is clearly evidenced by George's decision-making, always with the position of Hannover in mind, bringing him into conflict with lord Stair, his chief of staff, as well as the Austrian commander, count Arenberg. Moreover, the troops in his command were overwhelmingly professional, trained and hardened Hanoverians, reinforced by equally good rented Hessians. By contrast, the British troops were inexperienced and undisciplined. They did more damage to the civilian population than to the enemy. Their horses were unbroken to the point that the king, as well as Cumberland were thrown off their horse.

Peter

[augsburger]

Just got an e-mail from the mint to tell me this contest has started, only 2 weeks after they announced it.

[RabensteinK]

The contest finished last night, with just under 13,000 copies of the entry form downloaded. That might result in perhaps 8,000 submissions (for comparison, Matthew Dent's in 2005 was one of 5,000 submissions received). Such numbers will require a fair amount of time whittling down to 10 finalists for the shortlist - although I agree that for reasons of both tradition and not letting the pence coins "hang in the air" the Royal Shield is virtually certain to be retained in some form or fashion. If this prediction is correct, than at least half of the submissions will go straight in the bin on that count only. Britannia and St. George cannot really be featured (although theoretically allowed by the rules) since they would infringe on major commercial interests of the Mint.

[RabensteinK]

What strikes me as sad is that the proposed 12-sided rim - especially if featuring alternating milled and inscribed faces with the latter only giving the minting year - pretty much precludes further use of the rim for meaningful inscriptions as we used to have (preferably in English rather than Latin given that we are well into the 21st century). I did use the 12 small "counterscarp" surfaces surrounding the "gold" ring for inscriptions, but these can really only be read comfortably with a magnifying glass ...

[chrisild]

One of your posts I merged/moved here. Seems that some World of Coins members submitted designs. Great!

Christian

[augsburger]

I disagree that it will only be the royal shield. The one good thing about such a competition is that the number of ideas that come through should be enough that the design could be anything really.

I did a few flag based designs, though it was hard with the Northern Irish flag which doesn't actually have an official one. I also did some flower based designs too and map based designs. But yes, the royal shield appeared in various guises, generally cut up, moved around or something like that.

I don't think St. George could go on the coin. He's the patron saint of everywhere in the world but Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. So, it would be considered English, not British. I was going to do a Britannia design, but what I wanted to do I found difficult due to copyright issues, I just found a photo that I thought would be perfect for such a design, and tried to make it my own but couldn't and gave up.

So, I'm hoping they choose something that is interesting, if after such a competition they have a rubbish design, it'd be such a waste. 

[UK Decimal +]

Thinking ahead, perhaps now railway rolling-stock inspectors will be able to retire their trusty 3d.

The 3d is still used today to test a coach for "rough riding".   If it will stand on-edge diagonally to the direction of travel, the general quality of ride is acceptable.   Stood longitudinally, it tests lateral motion, and stood laterally it tests for excessive longitudinal movement known as surging.

If I travel any distance by rail, I carry a 3d with me.

Similar success with the new £1 remains to be tested.

Bill.

[Pabitra]

The edges of the proposed new coin are either milled or lettered.
It may not be as stable as old 3d.
However, trains of current era are supposed to be giving smoother ride so we should have more stringent test.

[chrisild]

Interestingly the new £1 coins, dated 2017, will apparently not have a new portrait of QEII.   This is an image from the World Money Fair catalog (WMF 2015); I condensed the ad a little by moving the two coin images closer together ...

Christian

[augsburger]

I had a dream last night that they announced the new portrait and then she died before it could be put on coins!