New £1 coin is Here.
Here at UKVending we have been telling you about the new £1 coin for some time now, well the day and the new coin has arrived. Today is 28th March and the new 12 sided £1 coin has been released into circulation.
For most people the transition to the new coinage should be painless and easy; but some organisations were slow in adapting to the changes, including some very large ones, such as Tesco’s, who were caught napping when they had to release the locking mechanisms on nearly 100,000 supermarket trolleys across the country that required a £1 coin to activate them. Rather than have no one able to use the trolleys, Tesco’s have, albeit temporally, made all their trolley’s coin free.
UKVending is not immune from the changes the new coins will bring. Vending machines and car park ticket machines are one of the areas’ most affected by the new changes. We have already posted blogs telling you what you needed to do and perhaps today as we search for a new 12 sided coin in our change, is not the day to worry but to celebrate what the new £1 coin means.
So here are the facts that you need to know about our new coin.
It is the first new pound coin in more than 3 decades. It has been introduced to try and prevent fraud and the illegal copying of worthless currency.
The Royal Mint has made the new coins a lot different and there are good reasons for this. Just as the Mint has revamped our £5 and £10 notes, the new coin has had a major makeover too. One of the most impressive new features is a picture similar to a hologram that transforms at different angles from a £ sign to a number 1. There are a number of top secret security devices built into each coin that the Royal Mint are, understandably, keeping to themselves to prevent someone knocking up an illegal batch of the new coins.
The new £1 coin will have on its ‘tails’ side a series of inclusive emblems for each of the four nations of the United Kingdom. For England – the English rose, for Scotland – a thistle, Northern Ireland gets a shamrock and the Welsh have a leek. The design was based on artwork submitted by 15 year old David Pearce who won a competition to design the new coin.
Remember the new coins will very quickly replace the old ones. Banks will gradually take these back and destroy them. Don’t leave them in your pockets, drawers or piggybanks as after 15 October they will become worthless.