English Sovereign Coin

Have a jingle of the loose change in your pocket or purse — those coins are part of an approximate total of £3.25bn of English coinage currently in circulation.

For the last thousand years, all English coins have been produced by the Royal Mint. It began as the London Mint in AD886, and from 1279 to 1811 was housed at the Tower of London. (Read the story of the Tower here.)  Since 1967, it’s operated from a factory in Llantrisant in south Wales. Isaac Newton became Warden of the Mint in 1696, and is credited with moving the pound sterling to the gold standard monetary system in 1717.

The gold sovereign coin gets its name from the profile portrait of the monarch on the very first sovereigns made, issued during the reign of Henry VII. Queen Elizabeth II holds the record for the number of different versions of her head used on sovereigns: five — so far…

Photo: Gold Sovereign of George III, Great Britain, AD 1817.  Copyright British Museum.