The old style £1 coin was introduced in 1983 to replace the Bank of England £1 note, which remained in circulation alongside the coins until 1988. Many different reverse designs were used on the original £1 coin, alternating design themes each year for the UK, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. None are actually commemorative designs.

See this page for the new 12-sided £1, introduced in March 2017.

Edge lettering up the wrong way?: I get a lot of enquiries about the wording on the edges of £1 and £2 coins. Note that the edge lettering can be up one way or the other, it’s completely random. It’s just a silly rumour started by a tabloid in December 2016.

There were 46 different ROUND £1 coins – 5 of which were available in sets only (1998, 1999, 2015 shield, 2016 shield, 2016 last round pound).

Specifications of the £1 coin are shown at the bottom of this page.

Details of all £1 coins are shown on separate pages, linked to below (click on text to see details for that date. Click on the image to see a larger version of that design):

Text only links, in case the table above does not display correctly:

1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 (2 different £1 coins), 2009, 2010 (3 different £1 coins), 2011 (3 different £1 coins), 2012, 2013 (3 different £1 coins), 2014 (3 different £1 coins), 2015 (3 different £1 coins), 2016 (2 different £1 coins, only the new 12-sided version will be seen in circulation).

UK £1 coin specifications:

1983 to 2016 (round):

Size: 22.5mm
Thickness: 3.15mm
Metal Composition: 70% copper, 5.5% nickel, 24.5% zinc (referred to as nickel-brass)
Weight: 9.5 grammes

Comments