New Pound Coins

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 12:52:42 GMT

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26632863

Design

I like it. I think it's the first new coin design I've actively liked, although I came to like the £2 and £5 coins a lot later. I like the word "dodecagonal". Yay for being shaped like a thruppeny-bit :)

Backwards compatibility with existing £1 coins

The BBC article says the Royal Mint said the coin will be about the same size as the existing coin and "will be expressly designed to fit existing mechanisms". But I've not seen the original text of that announcement, or any details on how or why, or whether it means "it will work in existing shopping trolleys" or just "it's POSSIBLE to construct shopping trolleys that accept them", or whether vending machine manufacturers and supermarkets agree or not.

If a dodecagon is just close enough to a circle?

The usual way of making a rounded polygonal coin is a Reuleaux triangle, a polygon curved so any diameter has the same width as a circle, so it rolls smoothly through a fixed-height channel, even though the centre isn't at the same height. But that only works for polygons with odd numbers of sides (else you have a point opposite a point, and if you maintain the same width, you just get a circle). So it doesn't work for 12-sided.

Authentication

http://www.royalmint.com/business/circulating-coin/isis

It apparently includes some sort of authentication thing like banknotes, but no details exactly what.

Pseudomonas asks on twitter, "This doesn't let the government track who spends individual coins, right? Right?" But I've not heard an answer yet.

comments

jack

New Pound Coins