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Coins of the pound sterling

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This article concerns British coinage, the coinage of the United Kingdom.

For related topics see:

Current coinage

Obverse and reverse of common coins in current circulation, £2, £1, 50p, 20p, 10p, 5p, 2p and 1p

The British currency was decimalised on February 15, 1971. The basic unit of currency – the pound (or pound sterling) – was unaffected. Before decimalisation there were 240 (old) pence in a pound, now there are 100 (new) pence. The new coins were marked with the wording NEW PENNY (singular) or NEW PENCE (plural) to distinguish them from the old. The word "new" was dropped after ten years. The symbol p was also adopted to distinguish the new pennies from the old, which used the symbol d.

Every year, newly minted coins are checked for size, weight, and composition at a Trial of the Pyx. Essentially the same procedure has been used since the thirteenth century. Assaying is now done by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths on behalf of HM Treasury.

The total amount of coinage in circulation is roughly three and a quarter billion pounds, of which the £1 and £2 coins account for almost two billion pounds [1].

Obverse Of Modern Coins

All modern coins feature a profile of the current monarch's head. The direction in which they face changes with each successive monarch. There was a small quirk in this alternating pattern when Edward VIII ascended to the throne. George V coin's had him facing the left, as did Edward VIII, his successor. This was because Edward thought that to be his best side, breaking with tradition (many saw this as portent of a bad reign). However, none of these coins were put into general circulation before Edward abdicated. When George VI came to the throne, he had his coins struck with him facing the left, as if Edward's coins had faced the right (as they should have done in theory). This means that in a timeline of coins used in Britain, George V and VI's coins face to the left, despite the fact they follow directly chronologically. All current coins include the Latin inscription ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA REGINA FIDEI DEFENSOR in abbreviated form, which translates as "Elizabeth II, by the grace of God, Queen and Defender of the Faith", with Elizabeth II facing to the right.

Values and dates

A Quarter Penny coin, to be struck in aluminium, was proposed at the time decimalisation was being planned, but ended up never being minted.

The Half Penny coin was demonetized in 1984.

The standard One Penny and Two Pence coins originate in 1971 and are the oldest standard issue coins still in circulation.

In the 1990s the Royal Mint reduced the sizes of the Five Pence, Ten Pence and Fifty Pence coins. As a consequence, the oldest 5p coins in circulation date from 1990, the oldest 10p coins from 1992 and the oldest 50p coins come from 1997. Since 1997, many special commemorative designs of 50p have been issued. Some of these are to be found in circulation and some are not. They are all legal tender.

The Twenty Pence coin was introduced in 1982 to fill the obvious gap between the 10p and 50p coins.

The first pound coin was introduced in 1983 to replace the Bank of England £1 banknote which was discontinued in 1984 (although the Scottish banks continued producing them for some time afterwards; the last of them, the Royal Bank of Scotland £1 note, is still in production as of early 2006). The designs on the one pound coin change often in a largely five-year cycle.

A circulating bimetallic £2 coin was also introduced in 1998 (first minted in, and dated, 1997). There had previously been unimetallic commemorative £2 coins which did not normally circulate. This tendency to use the two pound coin for commemorative issues has continued since the introduction of the bimetallic coin, and a few of the older unimetallic coins have since entered circulation.

There are also commemorative issues of Crowns. Before 1990 they were rated as 25p pieces, equivalent to the five shilling crown used in pre-decimal Britain. However, in 1990 crowns were redefined with a face value of Five Pounds http://www.royalmint.com/RoyalMint/web/site/Corporate/Home/Corp_faq.asp as the previous value was considered not important enough for such a high-status coin. The size and weight of the coin remained exactly the same. Decimal crowns are generally not found in circulation as their market value is likely to be higher than that of their face value, but they remain legal tender

Several of these coins have changed in size and design since first introduction. For more details, see the individual pages for each coin.

Specifications

Description of current British coinage
Denomination Diameter Thickness Mass Composition Edge
One penny 20.03 mm 1.65 mm 3.56 g Copper-plated steel smooth
Two Pence 25.90 mm 1.85 mm 7.13 g Copper-plated steel smooth
Five Pence 18.00 mm 1.70 mm 3.25 g Cupro-nickel milled, wire or flat edge
Ten Pence 24.50 mm 1.85 mm 6.50 g Cupro-nickel milled, wire or flat edge
Twenty Pence 21.40 mm 1.70 mm 5.00 g Cupro-nickel smooth, seven-sided
Fifty Pence 27.30 mm 1.78 mm 8.00 g Cupro-nickel smooth, seven-sided
One Pound 22.50 mm 3.15 mm 9.50 g Nickel-brass milled with variable inscription
Two Pound 28.40 mm 2.50 mm 12.00 g Inner: Cupro-nickel
Outer: Nickel-brass 		milled with variable inscription

Images

Depiction of British coinage | Reverse side
£ 0.01 £ 0.02 £ 0.05
File:Pennyreverse.JPG
File:2pennyreverse.JPG
File:FivePence.jpeg
Portcullis Prince of Wales feathers Crowned thistle
£ 0.10 £ 0.20 £ 0.50
File:10p-front.jpg
File:Uk20prev.jpg
File:50p reverse.JPG
Crowned Lion Crowned Tudor Rose Britannia and Lion
£ 1.00 £ 2.00 £ 2.00 edge
File:NewPoundCoin.jpeg
File:Uk2pnd2000.jpg
 The edge lettering features
the quotation "Standing on the

Shoulders of Giants" by
Sir Isaac Newton

Royal Coat of Arms* Design representing

technological development

 

New Designs

In August 2005, the Royal Mint launched a competition to find new designs for 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p coins. The competition closed on 14 November 2005. New designs will be subjected to public consultation before their introduction, and the successful designers will receive £5,000 in prize money.

The competition to find new UK coin designs has fuelled speculation that the UK will not be joining the Euro anytime soon.

Other British Coins

Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories

The Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories of the United Kingdom, although using the Pound, are responsible for their own economies, and thus mint their own coinage. These are in the same denominations as those of the UK, but with their own designs.

Coins from British dependencies are sometimes found in change in other jurisdictions, but are not legal tender in the United Kingdom and tend not to be accepted by UK traders and banks. Since they have the same specifications as UK coins, they are sometimes tolerated in commerce, and can readily be used in vending machines.

Maundy Money

There are Maundy coins in denominations of one, two, three and four pence. They bear dates from 1822 to the present and are minted in very small quantities. Though they are legal tender in the UK, they are never encountered in circulation. The pre-decimal Maundy pieces have the same legal tender status and value as post-decimal ones, and were effectively increased in face value by 140% upon decimalization. Their numismatic value is, of course, much greater.

Bullion coinage

The traditional bullion coin issued by Britain is the gold sovereign, formerly a circulating coin, with a face value of one pound.

Since 1987 a series of bullion coins, the Britannia, has been issued, containing one troy ounce, half ounce, quarter ounce, and one-tenth ounce of fine gold at a millesimal fineness of 917 (22 carat) and with face values of £100, £50, £25, and £10.

Since 1997 silver bullion coins have also been produced under the name “Britannias”. The alloy used is Britannia silver (millesimal fineness 958). The silver coins are available in 1 ounce, 1⁄2 ounce, 1⁄4 ounce, and 1⁄10 ounce sizes.

Pre-decimal system

Pre-decimalisation, the pound was divided into 240 pennies (or pence) rather than 100, though it was rarely expressed in this way. Rather it was expressed in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, where:

  • £1 = 20 shillings (20s).
  • 1 shilling = 12 pence (12d).

Thus: £1 = 240 pence. The penny was further subdivided at various times, though these divisions vanished as inflation made them irrelevant:

  • 1 penny = 2 halfpennies and (earlier) 4 farthings (half-farthing, third-farthing, and quarter-farthing coins were actually minted in the late 1800s, but circulated only in certain British colonies and not in the UK itself).

Using the example of five shillings and sixpence, the standard ways of writing shillings and pence were:

  • 5s 6d
  • 5/6 (see below for the / mark)
  • 5/- for 5 shillings only, with the dash to stand for zero pennies.

This sum would be spoken as "five shillings and sixpence" or "five and six".

The symbol, £, for the pound is derived from the first letter of the Latin word for pound, the librum. This symbol is found in the Unicode table as (U+00A3) (which renders as £), and differs from that allocated to the Turkish and former Italian unit, the lira, which derives from the same source word. That symbol is usually two-barred, and is found at (U+20A4) (₤). Whilst the British pound symbol may occasionally be found written with two bars, many people follow the convention used on Bank of England banknotes which is to use just one bar; the same is generally used for type faces.

The old abbreviation for the penny, d, was derived from the Roman denarius, and the abbreviation for the shilling, s, from the Roman solidus. The shilling was also denoted by the slash symbol, also called a solidus for this reason. The English penny was derived from a silver coin (the sceat of 20 grains weight) which was in general circulation in Europe during the middle ages. The weight of this coin was originally 20 grains but had reached 24 grains by the time of King Alfred (A.D. 871–899) or 1⁄240 of a troy pound, a weight known as a pennyweight—around 1.555 grams.

The coinage reform of 1816 set up a weight/value ratio and physical sizes for silver coins which remained constant in the UK until decimalisation, and even after decimalisation for those coins which had equivalents and continued to be minted with their values in new pence. This weight/value ratio and size system survived the debasement of silver in 1920, and the adoption of token coins of cupro-nickel in 1947. The system was also widely adopted throughout the British Empire, including Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, South Africa, Rhodesia, etc, etc. Australian and New Zealand circulating "silver" coins are still (2006) based on this system, but the UK finally abandoned it in the 1990s by the introduction of smaller, more convenient, coins.

The pre-decimalisation coins with exact decimal equivalent values continued in use after 1971 alongside the new coins, albeit with new names, (e.g., the Shilling became the 5p coin, and the Florin equating to 10p). The others were withdrawn almost immediately but most of those that did have precise equivalents in the new system remained legal tender until they were replaced by smaller coins in the early 1990s. Pre-decimalisation shillings were used as 5p coins, with many people calling the new 5p coin a shilling, since it remained 1/20 of a pound, but was now worth 5p instead of 12d. The pre-decimalisation sixpence, also known as a sixpenny bit or sixpenny piece, was rated at 2½p but was demonetised in 1980.

A similar pre-decimal system operated in France, also based on the Roman currency, consisting of the livre (L) sol (s) and denier (d).

Slang

Some pre-decimalisation coins or denominations became commonly known by slang terms, perhaps the most well known being bob for a shilling, and quid for a pound. A farthing was a mag, a silver threepence was a joey and the later cupro-nickel threepence was called a threepenny bit (pronounced threp'ny bit), a sixpence was a tanner , the two-shilling coin was a florin, and the 2/6 coin, or a half-crown was a half dollar. Quid remains as popular slang for one or more pounds to this day in Britain in the form "a quid" and then "two quid" etc.

Silver content

From the time of Charlemagne until the 12th century, the silver currency of England was made from the highest purity silver available. Unfortunately there were drawbacks to minting currency of Fine Silver, notably the level of wear it suffered, and the ease with which coins could be "clipped", or trimmed by those dealing in the currency.

In the 12th century a new standard for English coinage was established by Henry II, the Sterling Silver standard of metal—92.5% silver and 7.5% copper used in coinage. This was a harder wearing alloy, yet it was still a rather high grade of silver. It went some way to discouraging the practice of "clipping", though this practice was further discouraged and largely eliminated with the introduction of the milled edge we see on coins today.

In 1920, the silver content of all British coins was reduced from 92.5% to 50%, with a portion of the remainder consisting of manganese, which caused the coins to tarnish to a very dark colour after they had been in circulation for a significant period. Silver was eliminated altogether in 1947, except for Maundy coinage, which returned to the pre-1920 92.5 percent silver composition.

History of the penny

Main article: History of the English penny.

The penny was originally one '"pennyweight"' of silver. A pennyweight is a unit of mass which is the same as 1.555 grams, or 1⁄240 of a troy pound. So, a penny was literally, as well as monetarily, 1⁄240 of a troy pound of sterling silver. The weight of this coin was instituted by Charlemagne, and the purity of 92.5% silver (i.e., sterling silver) was instituted by Henry II in 1158 with the "Tealby Penny"—a hammered coin. At this time the standard unit of currency in England was the penny.

The mediæval penny would have been the equivalent of around 1s 6d in value in 1915. British government sources suggest that prices have risen over 61-fold since 1914, so a mediaeval sterling silver penny might have the equivalent purchasing power of around £4.50 today, and a farthing (a quarter penny) would have the value of slightly more than today's pound (about £1.125).

Denominations of pre-decimal coins and their years of production

The value of some coins fluctuated, particularly in the reigns of James I and Charles I. The value of a Guinea fluctuated between 20 and 30 shillings before being fixed at 21 shillings in December 1717.
These are denominations of British, or earlier English, coins—Scottish coins had different values.
  • Five Guineas (originally 100/- [£5], later 105/- [£5.25]) 1668–1753.
  • Five Pounds (100/- [£5]) (Gold) 1826–1990.
  • Triple Unite (60/- [£3]) 1642–1644.
  • Fifty Shillings (50/- [£2.5]) 1656.
  • Two Guineas (42/- [£2.1]) 1664–1753.
  • Two Pounds (40/- [£2]) 1823–1937.
  • Rose Ryal (30/- [£1.5]) 1604–1625.
  • Guinea (21/- [£1.05]) 1663–1799, 1813
  • Broad (20/- [£1]) 1656.
  • Sovereign (20/- [£1]) 1489–1604; 1817–1914, since 1914 a bullion coin.
  • Laurel (20/- [£1]) 1619–1644?
  • Unite (20/- [£1]) 1604–1619; 1649–1662.
  • Spur Ryal (15/- [£0.75]) 1604–1625.
  • Half guinea (10/6 [£0.525]) 1669–1813.
  • Half sovereign (10/- [£0.5]) 1544–1553; 1603–1604; 1817–1937, since 1980 a bullion coin.
  • Double Crown (10/- [£0.5]) 1604–1619; 1625–1662.
  • Halfpound (10/- [£0.5]) 1559–1602; 1642–1644
  • Half Unite (10/- [£0.5]) 1642–1643.
  • Half laurel (10/- [£0.5]) 1619–1625.
  • Rose Noble or Ryal (10/- [£0.5], 15/- [£0.75] from 1553) 1464–1470, 1487, 1553–1603.
  • Third guinea (7/- [£0.35]) 1797–1813.
  • Noble (6/8 [£0.3333], raised to 8/4 [£0.4167] in 1464) 1344–1464.
  • Angel (6/8 [£0.3333]) 1461–1643.
  • Florin or Double Leopard (6/- [£0.3]) 1344. Demonetised within 1 year.
  • Quarter guinea (5/3 [£0.2625]) 1718, 1762.
  • Crown (5/- [£0.25]) 1526–1965
  • Crown of the Rose (4/6 [£0.225]) 1526–1547.
  • Double florin (4/- [£0.2]), 1887–1890.
  • Half Noble (3/4 [£0.1667], increased to 4/2 [£0.2083] in 1464); minted 1346–1438.
  • Half Angel (3/4 [£0.1667], later 5/6 [£0.275]), 1470–1619.
  • Half Florin or Leopard (3/- [£0.15]) 1344. Extremely rare.
  • Half crown (2/6 [£0.125]), 1526–1969.
  • Quarter Angel (2/- [£0.1]), 1547–1600. Gold.
  • Florin (2/- [£0.1]), 1848–1970, circulated until 1993 as the old Ten Pence coin.
  • Twenty pence (1/8 [£0.0833] - 2/- [£0.1]) 1257–1265. Gold. Undervalued for its metal content and extremely rare!
  • Quarter Noble (1/8 [£0.0833]), 1344–1470.
  • Quarter Florin or Helm (1/6 [£0.075]), 1344. Gold coin demonetised within 1 year.
  • Shilling (1/- [£0.05]), 1502–1970, circulated until 1990 as the old Five Pence coin.
  • Sixpence (6d [£0.025]), 1547–1970
  • Groat (4d [£0.0167]) silver 1279–1662, 1836–1862 (and thereafter only for Maundy)
  • Threepence (3d [£0.0125]), silver 1547–1945 (and thereafter only for Maundy), nickel-brass 1937–1970
  • Half Groat (2d [£0.0083]), 1351–1662
  • Twopence (2d [£0.0083]), silver (inc. Maundy) 1668–current; copper 1797–1798.
  • Three Halfpence (1½d [£0.0063]), 1561–1582, 1834–1870 *
  • Penny (1d [£0.0042]), 757–1970
  • Three Farthings (0.75d [£0.0031]), 1561–1582.
  • Halfpenny (0.5d [£0.0021]), 1272–1969
  • Farthing (0.25d [£0.00104167]), c. 1200–1960
  • Half farthing (0.125d [£0.00052083]), 1828–1868 *
  • Third farthing (0.08333d [£0.0003472]) 1827–1913 *
  • Quarter farthing (0.0625d [£0.00026]), 1839–1868 *

Note: * = denomination issued for use in the colonies, usually in Ceylon, Malta, or the West Indies, but normally counted as part of the British coinage.

The mediaeval florin, half florin, and quarter florin were gold coins intended to circulate in Europe as well as in England and were valued as much more than the Victorian and later florin and double florin. The mediaeval florins were withdrawn within a year because they contained insufficient gold for their face value and thus were unacceptable to merchants.

All British coins produced since 1662 have been milled, i.e., produced by machine; the first milled coins were produced during the reign of Elizabeth I and periodically during the reigns of James I and Charles I, but there was opposition to mechanisation from the moneyers who ensured that most coins continued to be produced by hammering.

In mediaeval times, the penny was a sterling silver coin. English silver pennies are a collectible, and are now quite rare.

See also

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