British officials say the new coin will be harder to fake — as many as 45 million, or 3%, of the pound coins now in circulation are said to be counterfeit.
The Royal Mint announced plans Wednesday to replace the weighty flat piece with a 12-sided coin made with two separate metals. It resembles a "threepenny bit" — a coin that circulated in Britain from 1937-1971.
The new coin, which will circulate beginning in 2017, will feature a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II or whoever the monarch is at the time.
Royal Mint chief executive Adam Lawrence says the goal is to "produce a pioneering new coin" that will boost confidence and cut fraud.
he side of a new one pound coin announced by the British government.(Photo: The Royal Mint/ AP)
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Want to bring out the shine in those old coins your parents or grandparents gave you? Think twice before cleaning them. If the coins are collectible or valuable, cleaning will almost always reduce their value — sometimes by as much as 90% — and cleaning won’t improve their grading (the standards used by coin collectors and dealers to evaluate a coin), so you should usually let them be. If, however, you’ve just got some old coins around that aren’t worth much more than their face value, but which you would still like to make more presentable, you can usually clean them up pretty nicely without damaging their surfaces too noticeably.
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