169 million old £1 coins not returned to Royal Mint

It has been nine months since the old £1 coin stopped being legal tender, but the Royal Mint reported that around 169 million of them have not yet been returned.

The round £1 coin was replaced by the 12-sided version in October 2017, with approximately 138 million of them being melted down to help create some of the 1.5 billion new ones at the Royal Mint, according to figures obtained by BBC Wales.

However, whilst the old coin cannot be spent, it can still be taken to your bank and credited to your bank account.

The new £1 coin was introduced on 28 March 2017 to help crack down on counterfeiting, with about one in 30 of the old version estimated to be fake, the Royal Mint estimated.

The Mint has described the new coin as the most “secure coin in the world” and has a series of anti-counterfeiting details, which include a hologram and micro-sized lettering inside both rims. It is also the first coin to feature material inside, which can be detected when electronically scanned by coin-counting or payment machines.

A spokesperson for the Royal Mint said that they expected about 85 per cent of the 1.7bn round £1 coins to be returned during the transition period, based on the number of coins returned when the 50p coin was replaced in 1997-98.

    Share Story:

Recent Stories


FREE E-NEWS SIGN UP

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive breaking news and other industry announcements by email.

  Please tick here to confirm you are happy to receive third party promotions from carefully selected partners.


NEW BUILD IN FOCUS - NEW EPISODE OF THE MORTGAGE INSIDER PODCAST, OUT NOW
Figures from the National House-Building Council saw Q1 2025 register a 36% increase in new homes built across the UK compared with the same period last year, representing a striking development for the first-time buyer market. But with the higher cost of building, ongoing planning challenges and new and changing regulations, how sustainable is this growth? And what does it mean for brokers?

The role of the bridging market and technology usage in the industry
Content editor, Dan McGrath, sat down with chief operating officer at Black & White Bridging, Damien Druce, and head of development finance at Empire Global Finance, Pete Williams, to explore the role of the bridging sector, the role of AI across the industry and how the property market has fared in the Labour Government’s first year in office.


Does the North-South divide still exist in the UK housing market?
What do the most expensive parts of the country reveal about shifting demand? And why is the Manchester housing market now outperforming many southern counterparts?



In this episode of the Barclays Mortgage Insider Podcast, host Phil Spencer is joined by Lucian Cook, Head of Research at Savills, and Ross Jones, founder of Home Financial and Evolve Commercial Finance, to explore how regional trends are redefining the UK housing, mortgage and buy-to-let markets.

The new episode of The Mortgage Insider podcast, out now
Regional housing markets now matter more than ever. While London and the Southeast still tend to dominate the headlines from a house price and affordability perspective, much of the growth in rental yields and buyer demand is coming from other parts of the UK.

In this episode of the Barclays Mortgage Insider Podcast, host Phil Spencer is joined by Lucian Cook, Head of Research at Savills, and Ross Jones, founder of Home Financial and Evolve Commercial Finance.