Can you complete the shield!?
It’s been 16 years since Matthew Dent redesigned the UK’s definitive coins to create the Royal Shield of Arms design, and we now have the New UK Coinage for King Charles III which will replace these designs.
So it’s hard to believe there are still some people who don’t actually realise that these coins can be pieced together to complete the shield!
Time for change
In 2005, it was decided that our definitive UK coinage was due an overhaul, and The Royal Mint ran a competition for members of the public to design the new coins. Out of 4,000 designs that were submitted, The Royal Mint Advisory Committee selected Matthew Dent’s Royal Shield designs as the winner in 2008.
Speaking about his designs, Dent said “I felt that the solution to The Royal Mint’s brief lay in a united design, united in terms of theme, execution and coverage over the surface of the coins.”
Using all the coins from the 1p to the 50p and fitting them together like a jig-saw, the complete shield is revealed – as seen on the £1 coin design issued from 2008 until 2015.
Of course, the old round pound was replaced by the 12 sided Nations of the Crown £1 in 2017 and have now been withdrawn from circulation. However, the definitive 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p shield coins can still be found in your change, meaning the Royal Shield can still be collected and completed.
In fact, I bet if you were to check the change in your pocket right now, you’d be surprised by how much of the shield you’ll already be able to piece together!
Complete the Shield
So, why not try collecting the Royal Shield coins and see if you can complete the shield? And, if you’d like to give yourself even more of a challenge, how about collecting the whole shield for each year, starting with the coins issued in 2008!
To help you on your collecting journey, you can secure your own Royal Shield Collector Pack, which includes the Royal Shield 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p and 20p – all you have to do is find the 50p in your change to complete the shield.
Secure your Royal Shield Collector Pack for JUST £4.99 (+p&p) >>
Time to restore the original images. I hate the design, and I would imagine that tourists find them totally confusing.
First time I saw the coins I thought it was a very nice design…. But after 10 years I am still explain the people the meaning and the reason behind that particular design. I believe it is a time to change since there is no a 1 pound coin that shows the full imagen of the puzzle.
I certainly do not think these coins should be changed in the near future. There are already too many new coins being issued and it is becoming impossible to collect them in your change. I know several coin collectors in the Hastings, East Sussex area, and in Shepperton in Surrey, and in High Wycombe, Hertfordshire and none of us have so far seen any of the “new” A to Z 10p pieces, so the chances of collecting all 26 would appear to be negligible.
Very nice to know. I’ve never looked at the coins in this way.
Regards from germany
I am one of those people who have been collecting all the coins with their different dates and never realised that they made up the shield. I would like to see the union jack on our coins and hope that Scotland stays with us.
It’s amazing once you realise how they all fit together. The Union Jack is a great idea. I wonder what the next design will be.
Well rookie do you collect all the decimal coins for ie the 50p & the £2 coins
and do you collect the date runs .
Les.
Don’t like the. They’re a graphic designer’s solution to a sculptural challenge.
Personally, I thought that the shield design on 1p to 50p coins would/should have been changed in 2016 when the new £1 coin was introduced. The £1 coin was the link for the rest of the coin designs and the jigsaw now seems irrelevant as there is no coin with the full design on it.
That’s just my opinion and I’m sure there will be a mixture of agreement and disagreement with it, but at least there’s a valid (to me anyway) reasoning for it.
That’s a very good point Steven. I wonder how long it will be before the design does change.
Isn’t there there a train of thought that the bronze type coinage was going to be withdrawn maybe this is why the coinage hasn’t been changed my main problem is that one pence is the smallest denomination we have so how can fuel companies charge in tenths of one pence all fuel grades end in less than a penny example £117.99 per litre who gets the .01 as it’s always rounded up if we loose the bronze stuff fuel and most item will round up to the nearest 5 p costing us all more