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The Royal Mint unveiled innovative new designs to feature on the reverse of seven of the United Kingdom’s coins on Tuesday. 

Chosen through a public competition that attracted more than 4,000 entries, the coins feature different details of the Shield of the Royal Arms and when placed together, will reveal the complete shield of arms.

Britannia

This is the first new design to feature on many of the coins in more than forty years, and the first time a single design has been used across a range of coins in this way.

The coins are expected to enter circulation gradually from this summer, featuring alongside the current 27 billion coins currently in circulation, including the more than 800 million 50p coins featuring Britannia.

The reverse side of the £1 coin will also show the complete shield of the Royal Arms, with the front of the coins continuing to bear the existing portrait of HM The Queen. The £2 coin will remain unchanged.

The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury Angela Eagle MP said that the response to the public competition for new coin designs was overwhelming.

Contemporary with gravitas and history 

Matthew Dent’s designs were chosen from over 4,000 entries and will be seen and used by millions of people across the United Kingdom.

Andrew Stafford, Chief Executive of the Royal Mint said, “I am delighted with the new coins which have been beautifully designed. They are contemporary yet retain the gravitas and reference to history required for the United Kingdom’s coins.”

Dent, 26, is from Bangor in North Wales, and now lives and works in London as a graphic designer.

He said that it was a tremendous honour for his designs to appear on a medium as significant and prestigious as the UK’s coinage and to be produced and circulated in millions.

“I primarily want my new designs to intrigue, to entertain and to raise a smile. I love to think that they may be enjoyed as much by children at school as by folks in a pub,” he added.

Designs to become classics

Sir Christopher Frayling, chair of the Royal Mint advisory committee on the design of coins, medals, seals and decorations, said that every designer’s dream was to make an impact on people’s lives.

“Matthew Dent has achieved this at a very early stage of his career. These designs are certain to become classics in the history of coinage and I predict that they will have a very long shelf life,” he concluded.

It is normal practice for banks to order coins from the Royal Mint in line with public demand, which fluctuates over the course of the year.

The current coin designs will remain in circulation as legal tender, with more than 800 million in circulation.

An open competition to find the new designs was launched in August 2005, following a recommendation by the Royal Mint advisory committee to commission a new design for UK coins.

Each of the designs entered was examined by the committee, while all new coin designs are approved by the Chancellor who then seeks formal approval from the Queen.

The Royal Arms are a symbol of the reigning monarch. A Shield of Arms was first used on English coinage in the mid fourteenth century, while the Royal Arms in its current form was introduced during the reign of Queen Victoria.

It is usual for coin designs to be obtained by competition, generally restricted to freelance artists and Royal Mint engravers, but occasionally thrown open to the general public.

The last public competition was in 1996 to obtain a design for the new £2 which was introduced in 1998.

Related links

• Royal Mint
• See the new coin design