Littleover Community School

BBC News School Report @ LCS

Wonderful £1 Coin

By: Charlie

The designer of the new £1 coin

The new one pound coin is going to be about the same size as the old one but has 12 edges and is gold and silver. Shoppers can use both old and new coins from 28th March It features a design where the ‘£’ turns into a ‘1’ when seen at different angles. The "tails" side was drawn by schoolboy David Pearce, who in 2015 created a design of the four plants that represent the UK's four nations. He said he to the BBC he "spent a lot of time researching what coin designs looked like and what sort of designs would represent all parts of the UK" before drawing a leek, thistle, shamrock and rose coming out of a crown.

The most secure coin ever made

The Royal Mint

The new one pound coin is going to be harder to recreate by criminals and is said to be “the most secure coin ever made”. About 45 million £1 coins or 3% of coins are fake and are illegal to produce. The Royal Mint says that the new £1 features a secret "patented high security feature" to prevent copycats. The new coin has several distinctive features which include groves and tiny lettering. They have until 15th October to spend old £1 coins or return them to the bank. This means savers should raid their piggy banks and search sofas and glove compartments before their spare change becomes worthless.

Vending machines, slot machines, parking meters and toilet turnstiles will all have to be adapted to accept the new coins and reject old ones. Several supermarkets have said that they are getting ready by making sure that their self-checkout machines accept old and new coins from 28th March. They will reject round £1 coins when they go out of circulation in October.