English fry-up on new coin would be bad for circulation
Britain’s new £1 coin nearly featured an engraving of a full English breakfast, according to the Master Engraver of the Royal Mint.
A fry-up was one of the most popular designs in a nationwide competition to find an image to occupy one side of the coin, says Gordon Summers, who had the job of sifting through 6500 entries.
‘‘You would be surprised at how many representations of the full English we had. We only really had 30 to 40 distinct ideas, and great British breakfasts featured prominently,’’ Summers said.
‘‘Some people also wanted celebrity faces, with quite a few suggesting David Beckham and his wife.’’
Fearing that an engraving showing a black pudding might undermine the dignity of the Queen’s portrait, Summers eventually dismissed the idea.
‘‘The breakfast designs were ruled out because the coin had to feature something that represented the four home nations, and it had to be appropriate. The images that go on coins are the most widely circulated pieces of art in the country. After passport control, the local currency is the first thing that foreign visitors see.’’
The eventual winner was a design featuring an English rose, a Scottish thistle, a Welsh leek and a Northern Irish clover emerging from a crown. It was drawn by David Pearce, 15, from the English Midlands.
The new pound coin, which will enter circulation on March 28, is being produced at a rate of more than 100,000 an hour at the Royal Mint’s factory in Wales, and is the country’s biggest new coin issue since the old 50-pence piece was replaced in 1998.
The factory has so far produced more than 700 million of them.
The existing £1 coin has been in circulation since 1983, when it replaced the £1 note. The new coin is being introduced to combat forgeries, with one in 30 existing £1 coins estimated to be counterfeit.
The Royal Mint boasts that the new coin is almost impossible to counterfeit.
Security features include an image that changes from a pound symbol to the number 1 when the coin is seen from different angles.