Milestones in the decimal coinage of the UK

Started by <k>, October 19, 2011, 09:08:36 PM

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<k>

#45


The Royal Mint's next proposal was put into action when, also in 1997, it issued a bimetallic two pound coin. The coin was welcome, because the one pound coin was small but thick and heavy, and receiving four one pound coins in change from a five pound note was very inconvenient. Unfortunately the new two pound coin had the wrong electronic signature and had to be withdrawn and reissued the following year. With a diameter of 28.4mm but with a weight of only 12 grams, compared to 9.5 grams for the one pound coin, the two pound coin significantly reduced the average weight of the coins in your pocket.

The reverse design of this standard circulation two pound coin famously represents technology through the ages. The central area symbolises the Iron Age and features decorative whorls, within a latent image, that are familiar from ancient Celtic Art. Moving outwards from the centre, the second ring, with its series of cogs and wheels, represents the Industrial Revolution, which is said to have started in Britain. The third ring depicts the silicon chip, that symbol of the computer age and the technological revolution. Finally, at the edge of the coin, we see a symbolic representation of the Internet.

The edge inscription, "Standing on the shoulders of giants", is a quotation of Isaac Newton: "If I have seen further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants."  A common misquotation is: "If I have seen further THAN OTHERS, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." Some say that this was a cruel reference to his main scientific rival, Robert Hooke, who was unusually small of stature.

The design of this coin infamously contains an error: there are 19 gears in the cogwheel. An odd number of gears would not turn; only an even number of gears would work.
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<k>

#46

Ian Rank-Broadley's effigy of the Queen.


In 1998 a new effigy replaced the Maklouf portrait on the obverse of the UK's coins. The new one was created by Ian Rank Broadley and depicted the now rather elderly Queen. The new circulation two pound coin was now successfully released, and the public noticed that the new coin came in two varieties: the 1997 version with the Maklouf portrait; and the 1998 version, bearing the new Rank Broadley effigy. An urban myth quickly spread, to the effect that the Maklouf version, popularly known as "the Queen with necklace", was highly valuable. Stories spread of how people in pubs had been offered five pounds for their two pound coin. The figure eventually became inflated to fifteen pounds, fifty pounds, sixty-five pounds. Members of the public besieged internet coin forums, demanding to know more about this story. As late as 2001 people were still asking coin forums the same old questions about "the Queen with necklace": "Is it true? How much is it worth?"

 
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<k>

#47


In 1999 the Royal Mint issued its first bimetallic commemorative circulating two pound coin. The reverse design, which commemorated the Rugby World Cup of 1999, was rather simplistic and was not an auspicious start. However, since 2001 the Royal Mint has released one and sometimes two commemorative circulating two pound coins every year, in addition to the standard circulation design. These coins are often found in change, and some of the designs are superb.

In the past the Royal Mint's approach to coin design was often conservative and unadventurous. Yet at the same time, the Royal Mint provided superbly attractive thematic designs to its overseas customers. Since the late 1990s, however, the Royal Mint has thoroughly modernised its approach, to the extent that even non-numismatists among the general public now often comment on some of these designs and how much they admire them. The decimal coinage of the 1970s was a desert of dullness, but now we have varieties galore: various portraits of the Queen and many different designs can be found on our circulation fifty pence, one pound and two pound coins. Our decimal coinage has most definitely come of age.
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<k>

#48

The two pound coin reverse design of 2004 , depicting Scotland's Forth Bridge.


From 1983 onwards, the UK had had a practice of changing the design on the reverse of the pound coin each year, with different designs intended to honour the UK as a whole and each of the constituent countries. The designs were uniformly heraldic and highly stylised. Then in 2004 the Royal Mint issued the first of a four year series by Edwina Ellis that depicted the UK's bridges (one from each constituent country). This was a highly attractive set and marked another stage in the modernisation of UK coin design.


I often think of UK coin design as a tussle between tradition and modernity. In fact, if history had turned out differently, we might have had a thematic set of pound coin reverses for the series starting in 1994. To find out why, click on the link below:

UK pound bird designs rejected by Chancellor of the Exchequer

 
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<k>

#49

UK 50 pence, 2006.


From 1992 onwards, the Royal Mint had started issuing commemorative circulation fifty pence coins most years, and in 2006 it even issued two, on the theme of the 150th anniversary of the Victoria Cross. However, one of the designs was not issued in the form in which the artist had originally envisaged it.

To see an illustration of Clive Duncan's original concept, and to read about the controversy surrounding it, click on the link below:

Numismatic censorship: Gordon Brown vetoed UK 50 pence design in 2005
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<k>

In 2005, the Royal Mint announced a competition, open to everyone in the UK, to create a new series of reverse designs for the UK's coinage. The first of the decimal designs, the five pence and the ten pence, had been issued in 1968, and the Royal Mint apparently had a policy of changing the designs every forty years in order to bring them up to date. In practice, new designs have often been issued when a new monarch has ascended the throne, and there have often been fewer than forty years between reigns. However, the present Queen has enjoyed a fairly long reign. In any case, the Royal Mint intended to have a new set of designs ready for release in 2008.

The Royal Mint stressed that, although UK's design subjects had usually been heraldic, competition entrants were free to depict any aspect of Britain: landmarks, wildlife, or even, if they wanted, modern treatments of heraldry. Looking back in 2005 at the increasing modernity of the Royal Mint's coin designs, I considered it possible that we would end up with a set of modern thematic designs for the 21st century.
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<k>

#51

An illustration of Matthew Dent's "jigsaw".


In April 2008 the winning designs were unveiled. Matthew Dent, who was aged 27 at the time, had won the thirty thousand pound prize with his jigsaw treatment of the Royal shield of arms, elements of which dated back to the 1300s.

The new designs proved to be controversial for various reasons. Dent was Welsh, yet there was no reference to Wales in the shield of arms. This was of course the fault of the shield, not Dent. Others complained that the denominations were given in words, not numerals. And one particular British newspaper considered it disgraceful that Britannia had been omitted from our coinage after so many centuries, and it soon found plenty of irate readers who agreed with it - though they probably would never have noticed if nobody had mentioned it.

My own view was that the jigsaw set was ancient wine in post-modern bottles. However, I did find the EXECUTION of the designs superbly done, and I particularly liked the cross-hatching on the reverse of the five pence, which presumably would have been very difficult to achieve in earlier decades. I also liked the way in which the design on the fifty pence was now turned upside-down, relative to the previous version.

Virginia Ironside, the daughter of Christopher Ironside, who designed the reverses of the UK's first decimal coins, was sharply critical of the designs. What if, she said, the penny and two pence of the set were demonetised over time? The artistic unity of the set would then be lost. That was another disadvantage of the set: Mr Ironside's designs, though also heraldic, were varied, with a different emblem for each coin; Dent's design was a single shield spread out over the whole coinage set. And what, after all, as one writer to "Coin News" put it, was so original about making a jigsaw out of somebody else's design?

 
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<k>

#52

The royal shield on the 2008 pound coin.


The Royal Mint had originally intended to redesign the reverses of the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p coins only. When they chose Dent's designs as the winning entry, they decided that the reverse of the pound coin should also be redesigned, in order to show the full Royal shield of arms, without which Dent's "jigsaw pieces" on the lower denominations would not make sense.

Before 2008, the reverse design of the pound coin was changed on an annual basis; however, in 2008 and 2009 only Dent's reverse shield of arms appeared on the pound coin. His design was issued again in 2010 and 2011, but Stuart Devlin's city series of pound coins (discussed later in this topic) was also released in those years: two in 2010 and two in 2011. Had Dent's entry not won, we would probably still have had only one different reverse design per year for the pound coin, so Dent changed British numismatic history in more ways than one. However, Dent's royal shield was the only design used for the pound coins of 2012.

One major difference between the Dent design series and the previous design series was that the beads that appeared around the rim of the 1p to 10p coins and the 1 pound coin were now removed. Anomalously, the standard 2 pound coin with the technology-themed reverse retained its beads. Another difference was that the Dent 20p featured the year on the obverse, like all the other denominations. From its inception in 1982 through to 2008, the previous 20p had anomalously featured the year on the reverse.

 
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<k>

#53


What did I just write? "Had Dent's entry not won".

Surprisingly, it almost didn't win. Click on the link below to find out why:


 
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<k>

#54



Dent's upside down fifty pence.
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<k>

#55


After the last of the bridge series pound coins in 2007, there were no commemorative designs in 2008 or 2009 - only the new Dent design was issued for 2008 and 2009.

In 2010 a new pound series was started commemorating the capital cities of the UK's constituent countries: two in 2010 and two in 2011. These designs were created by the renowned designer Stuart Devlin, who created Australia's first decimal reverses, the much loved wildlife series.
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<k>

#56


In 2011 the Royal Mint started issuing a series of circulating fifty pence coins to celebrate the 2012 London Olympics. The series terminated in 2012. Some complained that the Royal Mint should have issued commemorative ten pence coins instead, as the full fifty pence series was too expensive for some children to collect. The series actually started with this one coin, above, that was designed by a school girl and was issued in 2009.
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<k>

The decimal coinage has now grown rich with variety and abounds in anomalies. UK coin design has become more modern, daring and accomplished, but at the same time it has not turned its back on heraldry, and nobody does numismatic heraldry better than the British.

Though we lost a lot of variety in the coinage after we went decimal, the coinage of today, with all its different circulating commemoratives, is probably at least as varied as the coinage of the 1960s. It lacks the variety of monarchs to be found on the coins back then, but we do now have several different portraits of the present Queen; we also have many circulating commemoratives, something that was unknown in the 1960s, and some standard coins, like the pound coin, whose design has changed most years. It wasn't until 1973 that the first circulating commemorative, the EEC fifty pence design, was issued, and it was many years after that before the next circulating commemorative of a standard denomination was issued.

Now some commemorative circulation coins are issued in pairs, and a whole flood of Olympic-themed fifty pence coins was released into circulation. While it is good to see such variety, we need to be careful that we do not go too far down that path, otherwise we will end up with quantity trumping quality. Then again, mints are under all sorts of commercial pressures these days.
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<k>

#58


On March 2nd 2015, the Royal Mint announced that a new effigy of the Queen, designed by Jody Clark, will grace the country's coins from now on. It remains to be seen which of the Crown dependencies, British overseas territories and Commonwealth realms will adopt the new portrait, and how quickly.
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<k>

#59


In April 2008, after the new UK design series, popularly known as the Jigsaw series, was introduced, a popular newspaper complained that Britannia was not represented on the set. At the time, the Royal Mint responded that she might one day be brought back on the two pound coin. On February 27th 2015, it was announced that this indeed would happen. How was the Royal Mint able to predict the future, so far ahead?

Despite the fact that many people consider Britannia, because of her name, to be thoroughly British, it is clear from her Greco-Roman style of dress and from her name that she is not British at all, but a symbol of the brutal Roman occupation. And after all, what did the Romans ever do for us? In my opinion it is time to replace this Britannia with a true Briton, of Celtic origin, namely Boudicca, a true hero of the resistance against the Roman occupation.

The edge inscription on the coin is in Latin and reads "QUATUOR MARIA VINDICO" ("I claim the four seas").



See also: Ruling out Britannia.
Visit the website of The Royal Mint Museum.

See: The Royal Mint Museum.