Can anybody help me with a british £1 coin please?

[Guest Confused.com]

Hiya im not a collector of coins so have no idea about them.

Today in my change from the shops i got a few 1985 welsh leek(i think that what you call it)coins.On the edge of the coin where it says "PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD" the ' is missing between the I + M.Is this rare?A royal mint error? Ive look through the internet but cant seem to see anything on it but have seen people saying that the welsh leek coins are rare coins.

Can somebody help me out please.

Thank you in advance.

Edited September 20, 2011 by Confused.com

[Peckris 579]

Hiya im not a collector of coins so have no idea about them.

Today in my change from the shops i got a few 1985 welsh leek(i think that what you call it)coins.On the edge of the coin where it says "PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD" the ' is missing between the I + M.Is this rare?A royal mint error? Ive look through the internet but cant seem to see anything on it but have seen people saying that the welsh leek coins are rare coins.

Can somebody help me out please.

Thank you in advance.

The fact you got a few of these in one trip to the shops should alert you to the fact they are NOT rare! If the coins are worn - as I suspect they will be, 26 years is a lifetime in a fast-wearing alloy like brass - then the ' will have worn away. It was never very deeply engraved.

But if you're developing an interest in these kinds of coin, you could maybe look to get a collection of £1 coins from 1983 in mint condition. None of them are rare (ignore what people tell you about 1988! touching upon scarce maybe, but not rare). You could build up a collection at an average cost of around £2 per £1 coin.

[Guest Confused.com]

Hiya im not a collector of coins so have no idea about them.

Today in my change from the shops i got a few 1985 welsh leek(i think that what you call it)coins.On the edge of the coin where it says "PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD" the ' is missing between the I + M.Is this rare?A royal mint error? Ive look through the internet but cant seem to see anything on it but have seen people saying that the welsh leek coins are rare coins.

Can somebody help me out please.

Thank you in advance.

The fact you got a few of these in one trip to the shops should alert you to the fact they are NOT rare! If the coins are worn - as I suspect they will be, 26 years is a lifetime in a fast-wearing alloy like brass - then the ' will have worn away. It was never very deeply engraved.

But if you're developing an interest in these kinds of coin, you could maybe look to get a collection of £1 coins from 1983 in mint condition. None of them are rare (ignore what people tell you about 1988! touching upon scarce maybe, but not rare). You could build up a collection at an average cost of around £2 per £1 coin.

Hiya,thanks for the reply.I did try add a pic in the last post but dont think i attached it.Lol

It doesnt look like it has worn away.Where the ' is suppose to be still has the lines running up the coin.Like the ' has never been there in the first place.Ive tried to upload pic again but it saying file to big.

[Peckris 579]

Hiya im not a collector of coins so have no idea about them.

Today in my change from the shops i got a few 1985 welsh leek(i think that what you call it)coins.On the edge of the coin where it says "PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD" the ' is missing between the I + M.Is this rare?A royal mint error? Ive look through the internet but cant seem to see anything on it but have seen people saying that the welsh leek coins are rare coins.

Can somebody help me out please.

Thank you in advance.

The fact you got a few of these in one trip to the shops should alert you to the fact they are NOT rare! If the coins are worn - as I suspect they will be, 26 years is a lifetime in a fast-wearing alloy like brass - then the ' will have worn away. It was never very deeply engraved.

But if you're developing an interest in these kinds of coin, you could maybe look to get a collection of £1 coins from 1983 in mint condition. None of them are rare (ignore what people tell you about 1988! touching upon scarce maybe, but not rare). You could build up a collection at an average cost of around £2 per £1 coin.

Hiya,thanks for the reply.I did try add a pic in the last post but dont think i attached it.Lol

It doesnt look like it has worn away.Where the ' is suppose to be still has the lines running up the coin.Like the ' has never been there in the first place.Ive tried to upload pic again but it saying file to big.

Yes, it's a 150k maximum per post. Can you reduce or compress the image and try again?

One other possibility is that the coin is a forgery - one estimate is that as many as 5% of all £1 coins in circulation are fakes.

[1949threepence 3,367]

Hiya im not a collector of coins so have no idea about them.

Today in my change from the shops i got a few 1985 welsh leek(i think that what you call it)coins.On the edge of the coin where it says "PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD" the ' is missing between the I + M.Is this rare?A royal mint error? Ive look through the internet but cant seem to see anything on it but have seen people saying that the welsh leek coins are rare coins.

Can somebody help me out please.

Thank you in advance.

The fact you got a few of these in one trip to the shops should alert you to the fact they are NOT rare! If the coins are worn - as I suspect they will be, 26 years is a lifetime in a fast-wearing alloy like brass - then the ' will have worn away. It was never very deeply engraved.

But if you're developing an interest in these kinds of coin, you could maybe look to get a collection of £1 coins from 1983 in mint condition. None of them are rare (ignore what people tell you about 1988! touching upon scarce maybe, but not rare). You could build up a collection at an average cost of around £2 per £1 coin.

Hiya,thanks for the reply.I did try add a pic in the last post but dont think i attached it.Lol

It doesnt look like it has worn away.Where the ' is suppose to be still has the lines running up the coin.Like the ' has never been there in the first place.Ive tried to upload pic again but it saying file to big.

Yes, it's a 150k maximum per post. Can you reduce or compress the image and try again?

One other possibility is that the coin is a forgery - one estimate is that as many as 5% of all £1 coins in circulation are fakes.

Could be, although I've never seen a £1 coin forgery with a date as early as 1985.

Talking about the 1985 £1.00 coin, many of them are showing very rubbed lettering, and the date is totally rubbed away on some. Easily the worst £1.00 coin in terms of low legend relief.

[scott 144]

that is something unique to 1985, it seems the legend on every 1985 is slightly thinner and lower relief

as for 1988, the 2008 old style £1 is rarer then the 1988

[Boomstick 0]

Would that make it worth finding one in good condition at keeping it? I've still got one of the fivers that came out a few years ago where you could rub the serial number off.

[TomGoodheart 403]

When new coins are just issued or if I find a circulating older one in particularly excellent condition I put it aside, but only ever one because generally speaking they are only of interest to me! To anyone else they are worth no more than face value. That isn't likely to change in the next half century, whatever people think about the Darwin £2 coins!

Counterfeits are of a different interest. The earliest fake £1 coin I have is dated 1989 and is made of lead that has been painted gold! A truly wonderful example. To me that is. To anyone else it's pretty much worthless .. or less, since it would be retained by any bank and you wouldn't get back the quid. There is also the fact that strictly speaking it's illegal to retain such things (counterfeits of circulating currency).

I was tempted to keep one of the two fake £20 notes I received a while back (in the Post Office!) just out of interest, but I was collecting someone else's money so pointed it out to them and they exchanged them for proper ones. So if your £5 is fake Boomstick, then by all means keep it out of interest. Just remember it'd be illegal to try to sell it so the 'value' is questionable. Plus there's always the grey area of once we know a coin is fake we could be accused of .. whatever the relevant crime is. So really it's just that such things have historical interest from the point that counterfeits have been made ever since coins were struck.

As to confused question, a pic would help. But quality control for currency coins isn't great at the Mint and it may be a simple manufacturing weakness; never going to be worth that much to the vast majority of collectors I'm afraid.

[Boomstick 0]

It wasn't a fake Tom, it came up as a printing error and was subsequently withdrawn - think they're worth about 40 quid now. I digress - back to discussions relating to currency of the metallic kind!

[1949threepence 3,367]

Would that make it worth finding one in good condition at keeping it? I've still got one of the fivers that came out a few years ago where you could rub the serial number off.

Yes, if you found a business strike circulation £1 coin dated 1985 in decent nick, it would be well worth keeping.

Same applies to 1986 and 1988 too, IMO.