Chancellor George Osborne has revealed the new design pound coin which will be introduced into circulation in 2017.
The new coin has twelve sides and is reminiscent of the threepenny bit, which also had 12 sides and was in use until 1971, when it was withdrawn from circulation following decimalisation.
The coin features the four symbols of the United Kingdom: the thistle, the rose, the leek and the shamrock. All four are seen emerging from a coronet on the new coin. It was designed by school boy, David Pearce, a teenager from the West Midlands, the winner of a competition run by the Royal Mint to find a suitable image for the coin.
George Osborne first announced his plans to introduce a new £1 coin in his 2014 budget because the current pound coin is relatively simple to counterfeit. It is estimated that as many as one in thirty pound coins is a forgery.
The coin will be made using cutting edge anti forgery technology to make it the most secure coin in the world, according to the Royal Mint. The three features that will help achieve this are: it utilises two different colours of metal, has twelve sides and incorporates a technology developed by the Royal Mint to foil counterfeiters, which has been adapted from bank notes and is being used for the first time in coins.
David Pearce, 15, said that he had spent a lot of time researching what symbols could represent all of the UK and could not believe that he had won.
George Osborne said that the new coin would have 12 sides in honour of the Queen because the threepenny bit was the first coin on which she appeared at the beginning of her reign. The new coin will be followed by a £5 note featuring Winston Churchill and a £10 note on which Jane Austen is depicted.
