Shield of the Royal Arms 50p

home

Design details:

In 2008 Matthew Dent won the public competition to find designs to replace those created for the first decimal coins of 1971. A different detail from the shield of the Royal Arms is shown on the reverse of the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p coins and when placed together the coins reveal the complete shield, which is seen in its entirety on the £1 coin. It is the only time that a single design has been used across a range of United Kingdom coins in such a way. From 2015 the obverse features the design by Jody Clark.

This is from my personal conversation with Matt 14/05/18 where i asked him about his design, Matt: I think my parents told me about it. I remember chatting to them about how the design should represent the four countries of the UK, they suggested birds such as the Red Kite for Wales and the Golden Eagle for Scotland. It was a nice idea but the trouble was that the design brief called for designs for six coins, and this approach would have left two coins needing designs, I couldn’t work out a way of resolving the idea fairly which led me onto exploring the jigsaw idea.