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New Coins from the Royal Mint
The United Kingdom is updating their coinage, in what is billed as “The Biggest Coin Event in British History Since Decimalisation.”
The Royal Mint explains:
The new designs have been chosen via an open competition which was widely publicised in the national media in August 2005 and attracted 4,000 entries. The winning designer is 26-year-old Matthew Dent, originally from Bangor who now lives and works in London as a graphic designer.After exploring a number of different options, Matthew Dent finally developed the heraldic theme, taking the greatest heraldic device ever used on coinage—the Royal Arms.
The coins look pretty great when laid out showing the parts of the heraldic shield (as seen on the right), and still look good by themselves, although it’s clear they are part of something bigger. Maybe that’s a good thing? What do you think?
Of course, I do think they look better than our new US $5 bill. That giant purple Helvetica 5 in the lower right just... well, it’s not my favorite.
For more on the new coins for the UK: Royal Mint
For more on the new bills for the US: Money Factory dot gov (including interactive bills)
Probably something could be said as well about the fact that the UK has a Royal Mint and we have, apparently, a Money Factory.
— michael | April 2, 2008 03:25 PM | Random bits
