In my last blog post, I explored the roots of the Gold Sovereign from its very beginning in 1489, before it was forgotten for over 200 years, until 1816, when something momentous happened in the history of British coinage. Let me explain.
In the early 19th century, the effects of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars led to severe financial instability in Great Britain. A number of bad harvests pushed food prices up and limited silver and copper supplies resulted in a coin shortage.
The Great Recoinage
The need to stabilise the currency became crucial and The Great Recoinage was the first step in this process.
The Guinea – the gold coin the Sovereign replaced
The aim was to re-introduce silver coinage and the decision was also made to change the country’s gold coinage to replace the Guinea, Britain’s major coin of the 18th century.
And so the ‘modern’ Gold Sovereign was born.
Struck in the same 22 carat gold as the gold Guinea and 20/21 of its weight with a £1 denomination, it was decided to return back to Henry VII’s era for its name.
The new Sovereign was a decided contrast to its medieval predecessor. It was half the weight and just over half the diameter of the 1489 version. But the Sovereign had not been heard of for more than 200 years and was not widely known at the time.
So it was up to the Master of the Mint to change this…
A new era for coin production
William Wellesley Pole was tasked to reintroduce the Sovereign and bring the ancient institution of The Royal Mint into the age of Industrial Revolution.
The Mint at Tower Hill
Pole decided to move The Royal Mint from its cramped traditional home in the Tower of London to nearby Tower Hill in a purpose built facility, which featured brand new steam powered coin presses.
This was a revolutionary move for the Mint.
And with the new facility in place, Pole turned to his protégé, Benedetto Pistrucci to design the new flagship gold coin.
And he created something truly timeless…
Find out about Benedetto Pistrucci’s design in Part III of my 200 years of the Sovereign Blog Series – Click here to read it.
Announcing the new UK Bicentenary Gold Proof Sovereign
To mark the Bicentenary of the “modern” Gold Sovereign in 2017, The Royal Mint have just released a brand new Gold Proof Sovereign reprising Benedetto Pistrucci’s original engraving from 1817.
With a low edition limit of just 10,500 worldwide, a special one-year-only design change and a fine proof finish, the 2017 Bicentenary Gold Sovereign has all the elements to be one of the most collectable British gold coins of the 21st century. And now you can own one.
Click here to secure yours today >>
The St. George and the Dragon Sovereigns designed by Benedetto Pistrucci
2017 marks the Bicentenary of the Modern Sovereign. Reinstated as part of the 1816 Great Recoinage to replace the Guinea, the ‘modern’ Gold Sovereign has epitomised British quality across the world for the last 200 years.
But there is much more to discover about the Gold Sovereign. And now, in the lead up to its special anniversary, we explore its story in a six part series of posts about its 200 years of fascinating history, telling the tale of the King of Coins from its very beginning in 1489 to now.
First, back to the very beginning…
The history of the Sovereign dates back as far as 1489, when King Henry VII instructed The Royal Mint to strike a new gold coin.
Henry VII
The new coin weighed twice as much as the existing Ryal and it was the first coin to be issued with a value of one pound sterling. It was struck in almost pure gold using the standard gold coinage alloy of 23 carat.
A Design with International Power
The coin was fittingly called the Sovereign, which was also the name of his warship that had been built the year before. Its design was inspired by a coin issued in the Netherlands by Emperor Maximilian in 1487 and featured King Henry on his throne, with orb and sceptre in his hands radiating the power of the monarchy.
An etching of the original Sovereign from 1489
The Latin inscription on the coin read ‘Henry, by the Grace of God, King of England and France, Lord of Ireland’, which sent a message to Europe that England was a nation to be reckoned with. The reverse design featured a shield bearing the Royal Arms on a large Tudor Rose.
The Sovereign became the flagship coin of the Tudor reign and was struck in turn by each Tudor monarch and is still considered the flagship coin of the Royal Mint today.
The Forgotten Years
However, the production of the Sovereign stopped when King James I inherited the throne and introduced a new pound coin, the Unite (named to mark his desire to unite England and Scotland).
And the Sovereign was forgotten for nearly 213 years, until 1816, when something momentous in the history of British coinage was to happen…
Find out what happened in Part II of our 200 years of the Sovereign Blog Series – click here to read it >>
Announcing the new UK Bicentenary Gold Proof Sovereign
To mark the Bicentenary of the “modern” Gold Sovereign in 2017, The Royal Mint have just released a brand new Gold Proof Sovereign reprising Benedetto Pistrucci’s original engraving from 1817.
The UK Bicentenary Gold Proof Sovereign
With a low edition limit of just 10,500 worldwide, a special one-year-only design change and a fine proof finish, the 2017 Bicentenary Gold Sovereign has all the elements to be one of the most collectable British gold coins of the 21st century. And now you can own one.
Click here to secure yours today >>
On 13 September, the Bank of England will issue a new £5. It will be the first-ever polymer (or “plastic”) banknote that they have issued.
But is it the UK’s first?
The new Bank of England £5 Polymer note enters circulation on 13 September.
Well it is certainly not the first polymer banknote issued in the UK.
Last year Clydesdale Bank issued Scotland’s first polymer banknote to mark the 125th Anniversary of the Forth Roadbridge.
But it was Northern Ireland that beat everyone else to it with a commemorative polymer banknote in 1999 issued to mark the millennium.
So the new Bank of England £5 note is certainly not the first polymer note to be issued IN the UK but perhaps it is still the first UK-wide polymer banknote…
The murky question of legal tender
So this might surprise you. No Scottish or Northern Irish banknotes are legal tender.
Bank of England banknotes are – but only in England and Wales.
But don’t panic – if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland – your money’s not worthless! Legal tender does not mean quite what you think. It has a very narrow technical definition which relates to your ability to pay a debt into a court.
In fact all Scottish and Northern Irish notes are considered “legal currency” across the whole of the UK. But that does not mean that they have to be accepted and it’s not unusual for English or Welsh shop owners to be reluctant to accept non-Bank of England notes.
So where does this all leave us?
The Northern Irish and Scottish polymer banknotes clearly beat the new fiver. But they were special commemorative issues with limited circulation and little recognition outside of their issuing nation.
The new polymer £5 note is certainly the first “legal tender” note issued in the UK but that’s not as important as it first seems.
It is, however, the first polymer banknote issued for ongoing circulation (rather than as a commemorative issue) which is generally accepted across the whole of the United Kingdom.
Mark the moment the UK £5 banknote changed forever…
Just 5,000 new UK Polymer £5 Notes have been reserved for a Limited Edition DateStamp™ release.
This is the VERY FIRST time that a DateStamp™ banknote has been released.