The New Pound Coin is Coming

Money is the be-all and end-all of just about everything. Its there, floating in the back of your head, whether you have it or not. It’s rare though that we actually consider it’s physical side. With contactless becoming more common, the cash in your pocket is getting forgotten. It’s destined to live out its life in the back of a drawer or under the sofa, going slowly green with age.

Recently, however, cash has been making headlines. First it was the petition to get more female figures onto bank notes. The only female on our currency (other than Her Maj) was Elizabeth Fry, a prison reformer who graced the five pound notes. People were arguing for figures like Jane Austen to be featured on our currency.

Ironically, the next cash-coloured headline was the new five pound note, which did away with Fry. She was replaced by Winston Churchill on the new fiver, so that there are currently no women at all on our currency. Only the Scots have managed to maintain some equality, featuring two women on their notes. This is set to change this summer however with the new tenner’s arrival.

The new £5 note itself is a welcome, if behind-the-times, change. It’s waterproof, wipeable, cleaner, stronger, and more secure. It should last five years longer than its predecessor, meaning energy is saved in remanufacturing. The only problem is that it contains animal fat, which makes using them a no-no for vegans and vegetarians. They have yet to fix that issue…

The New Pound Design

All this is old news though, in the wake of The Royal Mint’s announcement of the new pound coin. The announcement was made in October, and it’s finally hitting the tills this month. It isn’t just a matter of what designs there are on the back, or what words go round the rim. No, my friends, this is a whole new pound coin, shape and all.

That’s right. The much-loved, globally-recognised round pound is going angular. The current pound will go out of circulation in October, replaced with a dodecagon – a twelve sided shape. You’d be surprised how similar the two look, though for my money the dodecagon shape is uglier. It looks like they couldn’t quite be bothered to round it out and knocked off early.

A Super-Powered Pound

The reason for the change is security. This new pound is now the most secure coin in the world. It’s not just the shape that’s changed. It also has two metals like the £2 coin, micro-lettered dating, and retains the same milled edges (the familiar lines round the side). What’s new to our coins is the latent image on the front: a bevelling the shows a £ sign one way, the number 1 another.

It also has a super-secret, state of the art, hidden high security feature. No one knows what this is but it sounds pretty slick/worthy of an Austin Powers villain. All in all though, it’s more durable, secure and affordable. My main gripe is the back design. It’s currently a rose, leek, shamrock and thistle, which is all well and good. However, I liked the lame joy of discovering a secret new design on our pounds. I’m hoping they keep the changes coming, so I can go back to being uninformed but pleasantly surprised by our pound coins.

Check out the new design here:

 

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