New £1 coin design unveiled
Winner of public competition named.
The winner of a public competition to design the ‘tails’ side of the new £1 has been unveiled.
David Pearce, 15, a pupil at Queen Mary’s Grammar School in Walsall, beat off fierce competition from over 6,000 entries with his idea for the reverse of the new coin.
Entrants were tasked with creating a design which symbolises Britain and entries included cups of tea, flags, maps, the weather, famous writers, seaside piers and even the Rolling Stones motif.
But David’s design most impressed judges. It features four well-known symbols of the UK - a rose, leek, thistle and shamrock - emerging from a Royal Coronet.
The final design, which is true to David’s original entry, has been refined for use on the new £1 coin with the help of renowned coin artist David Lawrence and lettering expert Stephen Raw.
Coin design winner David Pearce said: “I was really excited to hear that I had won the competition to design the new £1 coin but hugely shocked as well! I heard about the competition through my design teacher at school and I thought I had nothing to lose so I decided to enter. I spent a lot of time researching what coin designs looked like and what sort of designs would represent all parts of the UK before submitting my idea and I honestly cannot believe I have won."
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The new £1 coin
David’s design will be struck onto the new £1 coin being introduced in 2017.
The £1 coin is being replaced for the first time in over 30 years as it’s become vulnerable to sophisticated counterfeiters.
The Royal Mint estimates 3% of all £1 coins (or 45 million) are now forgeries. In some parts of the UK it’s believed to be as high as 6%.
The new £1 coin will have the same shape as a three pence piece or ‘threepenny bit’ and it’s claimed the new construction will make the coins the most secure in the world.
It will be made of a bi-metallic construction of two colours, 12-sided design and include of the Royal Mint’s new anti-counterfeiting technology, Integrated Secure Identification System or iSIS, which can be authenticated by high-speed automated detection.
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