UK pattern pound coin dated 1983

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UK, pound coin pattern, 1983.

The UK round pound was issued in 1983.

Above you see a trial version.

The image is courtesy of the Royal Mint Museum

The trial is very close to the issued design.


The Royal Mint Advisory Committee disliked the inclusion of the pound symbol.

This seems a strange reaction.

What is wrong with the pound symbol, especially if seen on a pound coin?

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UK, 1 pound coin, 1983.

Above you see the reverse of the issued 1983 pound coin.

The legend has been moved further away from the pictorial elements.

On the pattern piece, they were too close together.

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The pound symbol was also removed from the potential St. Helena and Ascension pound coin design.

Just what is wrong with the pound symbol on coins? Few enough pound coins carry it:

The pound symbol on sterling area coins.

[<k>]

UK, 1 pound coin, 2017.

The current 12-sided pound includes the pound sign, but admittedly only as a latent image.

[Figleaf]

Just what is wrong with the pound symbol on coins? Few enough pound coins carry it

The proper answer is probably tradition. I vividly remember a letter to the editor, objecting to to decimalisation and its coins with the argument that "putting a denomination on coins will pull us down to continental level"

The reason behind the reason is once again the French revolution. Before, it was usual for coins not to have a denomination. Maybe due to decimalisation in France, post-revolutionary French coins do carry a denomination. That must have been reason enough for successive British administrations to avoid denominations on coins as much as possible and put it in letters when unavoidable, until it became a tradition, like a bowler hat on clerks or whigs for judges.

Peter

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I see - "splendid isolation", but in the cultural (and numismatic) sense.

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Eric Sewell

Here is a photo of Eric Sewell.

He designed the reverse of the UK's first modern circulation round pound.

It was issued in 1983.


He also produced the pattern seen in the first post of this topic.

He was Chief Engraver at the Royal Mint from 1970 to 1980.


I do not know when he was born, nor do I know whether he is still alive.

So far as I know, the round pound of 1983 is the only coin he designed.

[Alan71]

Yes, nothing on Wikipedia for him, and even a google search didn't come up with anything.  If that photo is from 1983, it's a safe bet that he's left us by now.  He looks at least 60 there.

[FosseWay]

According to the Evening Express newspaper of Aberdeen, he was 62 in 1983:

The coin's face has the current profile of the Queen, with a Royal coat of arms design on the reverse by Mr Eric Sewell (62), Cowbridge, South Glamorgan, formerly chief engraver at the Royal Mint.

Birmingham-born Mr Sewell joined the Mint in 1953 as an apprentice engraver.

His £1 coin design was chosen from 40 submitted in an open competition.

"Although it's something I've been working on and living with for many months, it will still be exciting to see the coin in circulation at last.

"As a coin, I think it's very distinctive, particularly because of it's thickness.

"I tried to give a cameo effect with my design – using the rim like the frame of a picture.

"Perhaps there are little things I would change if I had to do it all again.

"But I settled on a design which I knew from experience would not present too many expensive problems on the production side at the Mint.

"After all, we are in the business of making money ..."

Mr Sewell worked for four months to produce his final large-scale design in plaster.

He hopes the coin will eventually be regarded with some affection – perhaps even given a nickname one day like the little 6d (2 1/2p) "tanner".

Mr Sewell is now helping with the design of the regional variations of the coin for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland before he finally retires from the Mint in May.

More articles about the £1 coin from the Evening Express here.

That article says he was 62 in April 1983 and was born in Birmingham. The closest I can find is an Eric Sewell born in Walsall registration district in the first quarter of 1921. Walsall isn't Birmingham, it isn't even in the same county, but Aberdonians possibly don't know that  . There was an Eric J Sewell born in Coventry (a similar distance from Birmingham in the other direction) later in 1921 but he would still have been 61 at the time of that article.

I have found no death record for him. That makes it highly probable that he was still alive in 2007, as all England and Wales death records are online up to then, unless he died elsewhere. Death records since then are patchy, and the absence of his record does not mean he hasn't died in E&W in the last 10 years. He could still be alive, aged 97.

[eurocoin]

Some good research

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UK, pound coin pattern by William Gardner.

Image copyright of the Royal Mint Museum.

This pattern UK round pound was minted from a design by William Gardner.

Ultimately Mr Gardner's design was not adopted.