Could you spot a fake £1 coin?
One Pound coins were first issued in 1983, but one in every thirty £1 coins is now a fake. These forgeries cost the Government £2million every year.
Counterfeits £1 coins are becoming easier to copy and harder to spot which is why The Royal Mint have decided to issue a brand new 12-sided £1 coin which is billed to become the most secure circulating coin in the world.
The new 12-sided £1 coin will be an ultra-secure replacement which will be harder for forgers to copy. They will also last 5 years longer than the current round pound coins.
It has become increasingly difficult for consumers to spot fake coins.
The figure of counterfeit coins has more than doubled in the past decade, and shockingly now three out of every 100 coins in circulation are fakes.
Counterfeits are becoming a closer match to the real thing, making it increasingly difficult for consumers to spot the difference. Usually, the only way you would notice a fake is if it were rejected from a vending or ticket machine.
The majority of coins are stamped out, which involves pressing a piece of metal against a specially cut die. However they can differ from the genuine article in many ways.
Here are a few tell-tale signs to look out for;
Appearance
The coin has been circulating for a long time according to its date of issue, yet it appears surprisingly new. Genuine pound coins lose their lustre when they have been in circulation for a number of years. Also fake coins tend to be more yellow or golden than the real thing.
Design
The design on the reverse doesn’t match the official design for the year it was issued – you can find all these designs on the Change Checker website. The first was introduced in 1983 and the reverse design has changed every year since.
Edge lettering
The lettering or inscription on the edge of a genuine £1 coin must correspond with the year date. Often the milled edge on counterfeits isn’t well defined and the lettering is uneven, badly spaced or indistinct.
Alignment
Hold the coin so that the Queen’s head is upright and facing you – the design on the reverse side should also be upright and not at an angle.
Unlike notes, coins are not usually banked, but instead circulate between the till and the customer’s pocket and back again which makes them more difficult to remove from circulation. The probability is that you have already used a counterfeit £1 coin as payment for something without realising, such is the quality of the fakes.
Remember, a fake £1 coin is not only absolutely worthless but it’s also illegal to pass it on to anyone else.
All the more reason to be regularly checking your change…
The Changing Face of our Queen
Heads or tails? Well, in reality for Change Checkers, the answer is usually tails.
The reverse, or ‘tails’ side of the coin has always been the place to commemorate important anniversaries or make design changes, whilst the Queen retains her same recognisable profile on the obverse – the ‘heads’ side.
Except her profile hasn’t always been the same.
Something which often goes un-noticed on our circulating coinage is the changing face of our Queen over the years. In fact, since decimalisation, three different portraits of Queen Elizabeth II have adorned the coins in our change.
1969-1984: Arnold Machin
With decimalisation approaching, it was decided to refresh the Queen’s portrait with Arnold Machin’s new sculpture of her wearing a tiara. It was commissioned in 1964 and first appeared in 1969 on the new 5p and 10p coins. The portrait may seem very familiar – as it was introduced on stamps in 1967 and remains to this day.
1985 – 1997: Raphael Maklouf
Raphael Maklouf’s effigy replaced Machin’s in 1985 and depicts the Queen wearing the Royal Diadem which she wears to and from the State Opening of Parliament. Some critics accused him of sculpting the Queen as ‘flatteringly young’, but his response was that he aimed to create a symbol “Regal and ageless”.
1998 – Current: Ian Rank-Broadley FRBS
The current Queen’s head on our coinage was designed in 1997 by Ian Rank-Broadley. Created to fill the full circle of the coin, its larger size was a deliberate response to the smaller 5p and 10p coins in circulation. A noticeably more mature portrayal of Her Majesty, Rank-Broadley aimed to show the Queen with “poise and bearing”.
You can now collect all 3 of these portraits for both 1p and 2p denominations in a brand new Change Checker Collector’s Card.
Included with the card is a FREE coin you can’t find in your change – a pre-decimal penny featuring Mary Gillick’s portrayal of an uncrowned young Queen.
Click here to find out more
How Britannia struck the first Ironside 50p…live on the BBC
Jean Ironside certainly isn’t a household name, but the truth is she has been an understated part of our decimal coinage for the last 40 years. The BBC’s One Show visited her on Monday evening to explain why.
While Britain was undergoing a currency revolution in the sixties, Jean’s husband Christopher was busy designing the reverses for all the brand new decimal coins – one of which was Britannia – the female allegory who has adorned our coinage in one form or another for more than 300 years.
For Jean, this meant painstaking hours of life modelling while Christopher perfected his now famous masterpiece for our fifty pence pieces. She recalls how she improvised Britannia’s strong pose with a ruler and a piece of paper to get everything just right.
Jean replicated the famous Britannia pose for her husband using a ruler as the trident
But Britannia wasn’t Ironside’s original idea. He had designed the whole series of decimal coins before they were scrapped in 1964 by new Chancellor James Callaghan, and a competition was opened up to the general public. Unperturbed, Ironside went back to the drawing board with the help of Jean, and won the competition with his stunning and iconic portrayal of Britannia.
Now, to mark the centenary of his birth, Ironside’s original Royal Arms design for the 50p which was banished to the Royal Mint’s vaults has been revived for a new 50p which is about to enter circulation.
Live on the One Show, Jean was given the privilege of receiving the very first of five million pressed Ironside 50p coins – an experience she described as “absolutely wonderful”.
A fitting way to pay tribute to a true numismatic artist and his dutiful Britannia.
See the full show here, available for the next 7 days
Order you very own uncirculated Ironside 50p here, with free p&p!
