The design of modern British coins
Kevin Clancy

The designs on the coins we use every dayare almost certainly taken for granted -even by those of us who have a professional interest in theirappearance. But they do change over time and from year toyear, carrying designs for subjects judged to be historicallyimportant or of contemporary interest. You might, forexample, pull out of your pocket a two-pound coincommemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth ofCharles Dickens and a fifty pence piece depicting a swimmerfrom a series issued in connection with the London 2012Olympic Games.

The extent to which they change is summed up neatly bySir Christopher Frayling, a former Chairman of the RoyalMint Advisory Committee on the design of coins and medals:'everyone has three things in their pocket or bag: keys,mobile phones and coins. Keys have remained much thesame for hundreds of years, mobile phones are redesignedevery month, while coins are somewhere between the two -nearer keys than phones'.

Although only eight denominations of coins activelycirculate, there are dozens of different designs but theprocess for obtaining and agreeing them is no less robust inevery instance. The design Committee, of which SirChristopher used to be Chairman, is now led by WilliamWaldegrave and he is helped by lettering artists, sculptors,art historians, heralds, numismatists and representatives ofthe Royal Household.

For any subject a number of artists, aswell as members of the Royal Mint's Design Department, willbe invited to submit ideas, usually in the form of drawings oroften these days as computer-generated designs. All thework is presented anonymously to the Committee, whichmeets about four times a year, and members come to ajudgement on a short list of designs which are thendeveloped into low-relief sculptures.

Modern technology hasmade its presence felt at this stage, too, with designsincreasingly being modelled on screen but for high-qualityportraiture and more complex figurative compositions,traditional sculpting skills are more frequently required. Afinal decision is usually made at a subsequent meeting but itcan take three or four sessions before a recommendation isput forward to the Chancellor and then to the Queen forapproval.

While coinage design historically was the preserve ofengravers, the advent of the reducing machine, wherebylarger scale models of a design could be copied and reducedto coin size, opened up the field to artists from otherdisciplines. Over time the diversity of those approached hasexpanded so that today the coins in your pocket could havebeen designed by a painter, wood engraver, jewellerydesigner, silversmith, graphic designer as well as by themore traditional discipline of sculpture.

To make the pointmore clearly, last year the designers of the Olympic Torch,Ed Barber and Jay Osgerby, were behind the design of one ofthe two-pound coins issued to celebrate the 150thanniversary of the London Underground, while the talentedyoung silversmith, Jonathan Olliffe, designed an impressivehigh-denomination coin to mark the 60th anniversary of theCoronation.

Certain organisations, though, have played a key role overmany years and that of the Royal Academy has beenespecially important. Well over a dozen Academicians havebeen involved in coin design projects in the last decade, withTom Phillips being especially successful through hiswonderfully intelligent Samuel Johnson fifty pence and morerecently his design for another fifty pence, this time tocelebrate the life and work of Benjamin Britten.

Indeed, theAcademy has been part of the history of the British coinagefor over 200 years, providing coin designers in the shape ofWilliam Wyon, Thomas Brock, Edward Poynter, GilbertLedward and Arnold Machin to name but a few.

To subscribe by email, contact:newsletter@moneyandmedals.org.uk