Coin families

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The Royal Mint refers to a coin family as a series of coins of similar shape and colour. Usually they are contiguous (in terms of denomination) in a series of coin. For example, the UK coinage of 1930 had only two families: round and red (the bronze farthing, halfpenny and penny) and round and white (the silver threepence, sixpence, shilling, two shillings and half crown - the crown was a collector coin and did not circulate).

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Over time, new coin types have been issued, leading to new coin families. In the UK, the new coin families are the white heptagon (the copper-nickel 20 pence and 50 pence), the round pound (round and yellow), the 2 pound coin (round and bicolour), and the new pound (issued since 2017: bicolour and 12-sided).

Of the UK families, the bronze coins have a smooth edge, as do the heptagonal coins, while round white coins (5p, 10p) are milled.

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You could say that there are subfamilies of coins. The 20 pence coin is either flat or countersunk, depending on the territory that issues it. As you see above, the Isle of Man has issued both types.




The Isle of Man's 20 pence of 2017 is flat on the reverse and countersunk on the obverse. 

 

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Indian coins.


Sometimes shaped or polygonal coins exist as a family of their own in a set, i.e. they are one of a kind within the set.

Which coin set has contained the most families?

See also: Circulation sets with a majority of non-circular coins.

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I have read old Royal Mint documents that used to refer to a family as a tier. So we had the bronze coins in one tier (farthing, halfpenny, penny) and the silver coins (6d, 1s, 2s, 2/6) in another tier. The 12-sided brass threepence formed its own tier.