"Announcing the biggest design change in British coinage since decimalisation"

I suppose it's not really hyperbole. It is the the biggest design change in British coinage since decimalisation. I just don't like their tone.

i guess it's symbolic that i do most of my transactions with a thin grey slice of plastic. maybe i could brighten up my debit card using some little stickers of and heraldic iconography and robert louis stevenson.

i guess it's symbolic that i do most of my transactions with a thin grey slice of plastic.

This is precisely why they have to jazz up the coins. The kids just aren't excited about using coins anymore, what with your credit card this, and debit card that, and "paypals" and such.

http://www.platinum.matthey.com/image.php?pg=1194001211

We will not see their like again.

I didn't even like it when they changed them from saying NEW PENCE to TEN PENCE etc around the edge.

On the other hand, I do hope they take this opportunity to make the copper coins smaller, or even get rid of them all together.

Oh, I messed that up.

http://www.platinum.matthey.com/uploaded_files/news%20room%20pics/ukl8pls_3.jpg

people to put on the new coins:

1p Robert Green
2p Samanda
5p Brucie
10p Tamsin Greig
20p Schnorbitz
50p Joey Boswell
£1 Tim Berners-Lee
£2 Tim Hopkins

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_01/SaveBritanniaMOS_468x313.jpg

Funnily enough, the Britannia is the design I care about least, maybe because they've regularly messed about with the 50p since that EEC handshake one in 1973.

Changing coin designs will provide important work for archeologists in the early 3000s tho.

lol like there'll be any human beings alive by then

I for one welcome our future panda archaeologist overlords

Almost the pilot of Samurai Jack

I'll miss all those busted-ass twenty pence pieces from 1992 that the coke machine doesn't accept even now because they're a bit warped and manky.

This looks like the mint's glib way of saying 'WE WILL NEVER ADOPT THE EURO'

who'd've thunk it -- Alba the coin rockist!

the EEC hands one in '73 was genius.

the euro *is* the way to get kids excited about coins, obv, as they have the opportunity to collect the full set from each country, and the list is growing all the time! You can just imagine the kids boasting about having ALL the Cyprus ones already when you're still struggling to complete a set for Slovenia, all v similar to back in '79 when I always seemed to get at least one John Hollins every time I bought some Panini football stickers, and nobody wanted to swap him.

Man, I had dozens of Leighton Jameses for the 74-75 book.

Grandpoint Genie - sadly I think the things that excite the kids have moved on since the mid-70s.

hmm, not sure about that, they seem more obssessed with street corners than ever!

It's not like they've been that constant since they went decimal anyway. I can remember loads of changes since I was a kid. Halfpennies have gone. They could easily get rid of ones and twos now, I don't think anyone would care much. Tens and fives have shrunk. I'm sure we were still able to use old shillings instead of fives until whenver the fives shrunk to their current tiny size (late 80s? early 90s?). Twenties and pound coins and two pound coins have turned up. Have fifties changed at all?

Fities got smaller as well.

i still have one of those old fifties, it's mighty in size!

Do plenty of damage to a referee's head during an Old Fim game

Aye, I've got one in a wee box on my dressing table that holds various useless bits of currency (pesetas, francs etc) - it's like from a whole different universe of long-ago-ness.

xpost, haha

We certainly did use shillings in place of 5ps. Sometimes you'd get George VI on them and once in a while you'd even see a George V one.

I've argued for a while they should get rid of coppers, but I had a crisis of confidence the other day when I worried about rounding errors being too great. Could you have a situation where bank accounts would show any amount, but 5p became the smallest coin denomination?

The disparity in size between a 2p and a 5p concerns me greatly

how long before the £5 coin enters general circulation?

Biggest drawback of £5 = temptation to overdo it on pub quiz machines.

£5 coin, that is - I've never succumbed to the "put a £10 note in" ones.

No £5 coin for a long time, please. I hope we get the euro before it ever happens.

Ailsa you just play a quid and you can collect the other 9 back. Me overdoing it on quiz machines more to do with being completely blootered.

I've given up alcohol for lent, maybe now is the time to hit the quizzers!

well, yes, if i was not blootered i would be winning off the first pound and not needing £5 worth of goes to get anything back. as in "you CAN collect the other £9 back BUT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO, ARE YOU, YOU BIG DRUNKEN IDIOT".

xpost to Noodle Vague

I start leaning over the shoulders of other people trying to play and being that annoying git who shouts out answers once it's that time of the evening.

wow when did they reduce the 50P piece size?! no recollection of this whatsoever. how big was it before?!

As big as Chic's "Le Freak" 12" remix!

50ps be tasty.....

http://www.magicianscave.co.uk/Images/COIN%201%20002.jpg

The only original decimalisation coins that are still legal are 1p and 2p. The rest have all been replaced with smaller versions, apart from the halfpenny, which was abandoned around '84.

The original 5p and 10p were the same size and weight as the pre-decimal shilling and florin (2s) coins, which remained in circulation until the 90s.

I don't understand. Where is the news about the NEW coins?

There is no news. It's hush hush.

Best crossover coin was the pre-decimal sixpence which had an exciting run as a 2 and a half pence piece for a while there in the 70s.

they can't lose coppers and keep the 5p, it destroys the lovely 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 sequence.

which works in pence and in pounds, if you include notes.

I have no interest in this sequence.

I don't think the Mint does either, going by how long it took for £2 coins to be widely available.

I do not like 1 or 2p pieces much but the vending machine at work takes them and when you pile all your useless change in there it feels like you are getting a free packet of crisps.

1p and 2p coins haven't changed in design since decimalisation, but since the early nineties they haven't been made of copper. Otherwise we'd all be melting them down together with railway tracks and street signs, right?

Well, I think there's still a bit of copper in the alloy, but they're only worth 1p and 2p now.

A while ago I worked out roughly how much money I'd be down if the 1p and 2p coins were eliminated and everything rounded up, and I demand that they stay.

But then I still get excited by the thought of ever coming across a £1 note again.

(note that I'm Scottish, not TREMENDOUSLY OLD like many of you)

A while ago I worked out roughly how much money I'd be down if the 1p and 2p coins were eliminated and everything rounded up, and I demand that they stay ... note that I'm Scottish

:)

heehee

ha oh dear. sorry about that terrible propagation of stereotypes, fellow Scots.

Llantrisant, the Welsh town where the Royal mint is located, is known locally as "The hole with the mint".

Could you have a situation where bank accounts would show any amount, but 5p became the smallest coin denomination?

Sure, that's what's done here (Norway), and I suspect elsewhere where the smallest unit of currency is far smaller than the UK penny (ie about everywhere): Smallest coin is 50 øre (0.5 kroner, approx 4 pence), but bank accounts go down to 1 øre (< 0.1 penny). Also, rounding isn't done when paying by card.

I love that 'hole with the Mint' quote

Here they are

cool!

The jigsaw concept is ingenious. It will encourage wealth creation through people wanting to complete the set.

OK, they're pretty cool. They should do bigger, better pictures that way - like currency jigsaws. It would be something to do on a quiet day in the pub, gathering all the edges and pieces of sky together.

x-post

Maybe they can put a picture of Our Maddy on the coins and by the time the coins come out of circulation again, she might have been found.

i approve of this coins

The next design should have British monarch top trumps on them.

They will be "reflecting" 21st-century Britain.

Geddit???!!!

I for one welcome our future panda archaeologist overlords
-- Curt1s Stephens, Monday, 11 February 2008 Bookmark Link

super!

uk nu coins v us nu notes

http://www.typography.com/ask/showBlog.php?blogID=93

hey where's my 2 pound coin???

Not being changed, still with the annually changing design.

I like these new ones except for the pound which looks a bit of cop-out.

Poll!

New British coins - which ones the best?