# Check out the shiny new British coins
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 3, 2008, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787 "2008-04-03T13:32:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/1 "2008-04-03T13:32:32Z")
The Royal Mint has just unveiled the [new designs](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3666992.ece) for our money.
There’s a nice high-resolution slideshow of pics [here](http://tinyurl.com/yrsgvo).
I think the new coins are great. I was expecting them to have gone for some kind of horribly trendy and “relevant” set of designs, featuring , I dunno, Tesco supermarkets and hoodies or something, but these designs are classy. The Welsh aren’t happy, of course, as Wales isn’t featured on the Royal Shield, but they’ve had the Prince of Wales feathers on the 2p for 37 years now.
The only downside I can see is that there are no numerals on the coins to help non-English speakers, but then the USA doesn’t have them either.
(And, of course, the fact that there are still 1p and 2p coins in the new range, despite the fact that the penny is worth considerably less now than the 1/2p coin was when it was phased out nearly 25 years ago!)
What think the SDMB?
---
### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/2 "2008-04-03T13:38:03Z")
Too late to edit, but the 20p is my least favourite design - having a lion’s arse as the central feature seems a bit odd. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/3 "2008-04-03T14:01:07Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon]
And, of course, the fact that there are still 1p and 2p coins in the new range
[/QUOTE]
We have to have them to get our change for all the things sold for £x.99. I s’pose they could have introduced a 99p coin.
I think they’re quite snazzy, though I don’t remember the last time I really looked at a coin. Googling on _pound coins_ turns up at least two designs I’ve never noticed. I’ll have a closer look at my change at Waitrose tonight.
---
### Author:  [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/4 "2008-04-03T14:06:59Z")
I like them! Particularly the way that you can assemble them together to make up the bigger picture.
I can’t believe the designer was only paid £35,000 though!
---
### Author:  [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/5 "2008-04-03T14:08:56Z")
Is that a Tara harp?
---
### Author:  [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/6 "2008-04-03T14:16:02Z")
> [@](#):
>
> A public competition was launched to redesign the coins and Matthew Dent, 26, a graphic designer from Bangor, North Wales, successfully emerged from a field of 4,000 entrants.
> [@](#):
>
> “I can imagine people playing with them, having them on a tabletop and enjoying them,” Mr Dent said.
North Wales sounds exciting.
---
### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/7 "2008-04-03T14:33:31Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel]
North Wales sounds exciting.
[/QUOTE]
Well, when he said “tabletop” he meant “chunk of slate”. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/8 "2008-04-03T14:34:13Z")
[QUOTE=Small Clanger]
We have to have them to get our change for all the things sold for £x.99.
[/QUOTE]
Not really. We have .99 prices and rounding. It works fine.
The new coins look great. A good advertisement for design by prize rather than committee.
---
### Author:  [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/9 "2008-04-03T14:40:15Z")
I can’t say that I care for the designs. They’re very “Look at me!”
But I’m not from the UK, so I don’t have to see them.
Joe
---
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/10 "2008-04-03T15:05:26Z")
I sort of like it, but I think it would’ve been better if the coins were touching when you assembled them.
I guarantee that comedians on television, comics in magazines and tabloids, and guys trying to win bar bets will come up with ways to assemble the coins so that they produce images that are borderline obscene.
(“I’ll bet 25 pounds I can make a vajayjay out of the change in your pocket.”)
---
### Author:  [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/11 "2008-04-03T15:06:10Z")
[QUOTE=wheresgeorge04]
I can’t say that I care for the designs. They’re very “Look at me!”
[/QUOTE]
Well, that’s better than “Don’t look at this ugly thing.”
I like them. I wish they’d redesign our coins to something that looked this nice. I’m sick of presidents’ heads.
---
### Author:  [@supergoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supergoose)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/12 "2008-04-03T15:19:41Z")
I really want to like them and in general I think it’s a neat idea, but in practice the designs are all so off-centered and incomplete and _arrgg_…I look at them and immediately am reminded of coins that have been stamped incorrectly and I can’t really get past that.
---
### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/13 "2008-04-03T16:36:14Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
I sort of like it, but I think it would’ve been better if the coins were touching when you assembled them.
I guarantee that comedians on television, comics in magazines and tabloids, and guys trying to win bar bets will come up with ways to assemble the coins so that they produce images that are borderline obscene.
(“I’ll bet 25 pounds I can make a vajayjay out of the change in your pocket.”)
[/QUOTE]
Of course, if we used the euro, [one coin would be enough](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/uncyclopedia/images/thumb/3/3b/2euro1-dick.jpg/250px-2euro1-dick.jpg) to make an obscene image.
---
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/14 "2008-04-03T17:03:42Z")
I like them. The asymmetry appeals to me.
---
### Author:  [@Mycroft\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mycroft_H)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/15 "2008-04-03T18:52:54Z")
Interesting! I had not realised that they we being changed. I’m a long time coin collector and, having lived in England, the British coins hold a special interest for me.
---
### Author:  [@seosamh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seosamh)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/16 "2008-04-03T19:14:11Z")
I’ve been waiting with bated breath to see these - and I’m afraid I am desperately disappointed. They are absolutely hideous. Just the thing you’d expect from an 11 year-old (OK, so he’s 26 - but that’s bad enough). Sod the pretty pattern they make when you spread them out: who’s ever going to do that?? I give them 5 years before someone at the Royal Mint comes to their senses and quietly replaces them.
It would be interesting to see the designs that the design committee _rejected_. Sometimes the losers are far more interesting than the winners (like the designs by [Publio Morbiducci](http://www.geocities.com/eirecoins/morb.htm) for the Irish Free State coinage in 1927).
---
### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/17 "2008-04-03T19:46:47Z")
I think they look great. Finally somebody’s had the balls to do something radically different.
---
### Author:  [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/18 "2008-04-03T20:28:21Z")
[QUOTE=seosamh]
Just the thing you’d expect from an 11 year-old (OK, so he’s 26 - but that’s bad enough).
[/QUOTE]
Hey hey hey! I don’t think his age had anything to do with it. Cuz I’m 26, and I could’ve done better. Who the heck thought that was a good idea? It’s just weird and pointless.
---
### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/19 "2008-04-03T20:35:11Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
I sort of like it, but I think it would’ve been better if the coins were touching when you assembled them.
[/QUOTE]
If you are referring to [this](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2008/04/02/coin/coins.jpg), it wouldn’t be possible, because they’re all different sizes, even though in the picture it perhaps looks like the 10p and 2p are the same.
Edit: and FWIW, I like them a lot.
---
### Author:  [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2008, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787/20 "2008-04-03T20:54:54Z")
I also think it is a great idea, but not for a design that will last for decades. It’s fantastic for a special occasion (like the US bicentennial quarters), where you’d like them to have some unique property, but as normal coins, you can’t get over the fact that they look like crap individually.
Within a few weeks of their first circulation, everyone will be sick of arranging them in patterns on their desk, but they’ll still be stuck with funny-looking coins for the next 30 years.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-out-the-shiny-new-british-coins/443787.md?page=2)