Millions of brand new £1 coins are about to enter tills across the UK but the will say 2022 and you won’t find King Charles on them. If that left you scratching your head or wondering if there’d been some kind of time slip, then I can provide the answer. Your brand new coin is actually three years old.
On August 20 2025, the Royal Mint released 29 million shiny £1 coins into circulation. All of them bear the image of Queen Elizabeth II and the date of 2022. And that’s because they were actually struck three years ago when the longest reigning Monarch in British history was celebrating her Platinum Jubilee. The Mint always has to be ready to keen the money in the country flowing. It releases new coins when enough old versions of that denomination have been lost due to wear and tear or, well, just lost.
And that means that sometimes, there’s a wait on when the appear. This is one such case. On the same day that the millions of Queen Elizabeth II coins were put into circulation, several million bearing the image of her son and successor, King Charles III, also made their way to tills and banks around the UK. But only around 7 million of those were struck to make up the total number needed at this particular moment.
The King himself
insisted at the start of his reign that new coins and notes bearing
his image only appear once the old supply was exhausted. That was
to save money and resources. However, it does mean that three years
into his rule, we find ourselves in the rather strange situation of
our brand new coins being three years old and having a different
Monarch on them.
The new release of circulating pound coins can only come at a time when it’s economically sensible to release them. Even though there were almost thirty million £1 coins waiting to hit tills when Elizabeth II died, adding that amount of money to the economy just to clear the decks made no financial sense. Neither did melting them down and starting again.
And when I asked the Royal Mint why these ‘new’ coins said 2022, they replied that’s when they were made. This money has been waiting for the right moment to make its appearance and it comes three years after Elizabeth II headed to Balmoral to spend her last weeks in her beloved Scottish home.
The dual release also adds a rather historic and personal touch to the coinage. The Royal Mint says this is the rarest Queen Elizabeth II £1 coin ever minted because of the low numbers that have made it to the tills compared with other releases in her reign. But this is also the first time that a circulating £1 coin with King Charles on it has been made – mother and son united in history, one ore time.
Collectors will be keeping an eye out for both these rarities. It took me until this summer to find a bank note with King Charles on it and then I saw two in quick succession. I’ll keep them peeled for these two coins, including this rare event, money made in expectation of a long reign continuing but which remains useful several years after it is done.
