 in the denomination of five pounds (previously 25p, i.e. five shillings). Ceremonial Maundy money and bullion coinage of gold sovereigns, half sovereigns, and gold and silver Britannia coins are also produced. Some territories outside the United Kingdom, that use the pound sterling, produce their own coinage, with the same denominations and specifications as the UK coinage but local designs.
In the years just prior to decimalisation, the circulating British coins were the half crown (2/6), two shillings or florin (2/-), shilling (1/-), sixpence (6d), threepence (3d), penny (1d) and halfpenny (½d). The farthing (¼d) had been withdrawn in 1960. There was also the Crown (5/-), which was (and still is) legal tender but only minted on special occasions and not normally circulated.
All modern coins feature a profile of the current monarch's head. The direction in which they face changes with each successive monarch, a pattern that began with the Stuarts. For the Tudors and pre-Restoration Stuarts, both left and right-facing portrait images were minted within the reign of a single monarch. In the Middle Ages, portrait images tended to be full face.
From a very early date, British coins have been inscribed with the name of the ruler of the kingdom in which they were produced, and a longer or shorter title, always in Latin; among the earliest distinctive English coins are the silver pennies of Offa of Mercia, which were inscribed with the legend OFFA REX, "King Offa". The English silver penny was derived from another silver coin, the sceat, of 20 troy grains weight, which was in general circulation in Europe during the Middle Ages. In the 12th century, Henry II established the sterling silver standard for English coinage, of 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper, replacing the earlier use of fine silver in the Middle Ages. The coinage reform of 1816 set up a weight/value ratio and physical sizes for silver coins. Silver was eliminated from coins, except Maundy coins, in 1947.
- 1 History
- 2 Currently circulating coinage
- 2.1 Production and distribution
- 2.2 Coins in circulation
- 2.3 Dimensions
- 2.4 UK decimal coinage history
- 2.5 Summary of denominations
- 2.6 Specifications
- 2.7 UK designs
- 2.8 Non-UK coinage
- 3 Non-circulating coins
- 4 Pre-decimal coinage
- 5 Minting errors reaching circulation
- 6 Titles
- 7 Mottos
- 8 See also
- 9 References
- 10 External links
The history of the Royal Mint stretches back to AD 886. For many centuries production took place in London, initially at the Tower of London, and then at premises nearby in Tower Hill. In the 1970s production was transferred to Llantrisant in South Wales. Historically Scotland and England had separate coinage; the last Scottish coins were struck in 1709 shortly after union with England.
Coins were originally hand-hammered — an ancient technique in which two dies are struck together with a blank coin between them. This was the traditional method of manufacturing coins in the Western world from the classical Greek era onwards, in comparison with Asia, where coins were traditionally cast. The first milled (that is, machine-made) coins were produced during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and periodically during the subsequent reigns of James I and Charles I, but there was initially opposition to mechanisation from the moneyers who ensured that most coins continued to be produced by hammering. All British coins produced since 1662 have been milled.
Origins of the penny
The English penny first appeared in Anglo-Saxon times, as a silver coin. It was derived from another silver coin, the sceat, of 20 troy grains weight, which was in general circulation in Europe during the Middle Ages. The weight of the English penny was fixed at 22.5 troy grains (about 1.46 grams) by Offa of Mercia, an 8th-century contemporary of Charlemagne. The coin's designated value, however, was that of 24 troy grains of silver (one pennyweight, or 1⁄240 of a troy pound, or about 1.56 grams), with the difference being a premium attached by virtue of the minting into coins. Thus 240 pennyweights ma