Friday, April 04, 2008

New British Coin Design

Britain is issuing new coins, this year, and the redesign is a modern take on the Royal Arms. The coins look very avante garde, and they are quite attractive. (The design was chosen from a pool of proposed designs in an open 'contest' a few years ago. The winner was a London graphics designer who quite unusually treated the coins as a single entitly -- each coin contains part of the Royal Arms, and when arranged properly, they display the whole shield. It's really kind of cool). You can see the whole collection here.
The Royal Arms is divided into four parts: England being represented by the three lions passant guardant in the first and fourth quarters, the Scottish lion rampant in the second and the harp of Ireland in the third, with all four quarters spread over the six coins from the 1p to the 50p. Completing the new range of coins is the £1 coin featuring the shield of the Royal Arms in its entirety, uniting the six fragmented elements into one design.
It's only slightly unfortunate that two of the coins feature... lion butts.

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