1983 Royal Arms £1 Coin
The 1983 Royal Arms £1 is a circulating £1 coin with 443.1 million made. Value band: face value. Here is how to recognize it, what makes one worth more and what to check on yours.
- Year
- 1983
- Circulation mintage
- 443,053,510
- Value band
- Face value
- Composition
- Nickel-brass (70% copper, 24.5% zinc, 5.5% nickel)
Original illustration of the coin's shape and metal. Tap to flip. Not a picture of the actual design.
Face value · Small premium · Collector premium · Significant rarity. We use bands because prices change daily.
What is a 1983 Royal Arms £1 worth?
With 443.1 million made, the 1983 Royal Arms £1 is common. It has no collector value beyond the pound itself. Since 15 October 2017 the round pound can no longer be spent in shops. Only uncirculated coins from sets, genuine errors and the scarce dates bring more.
What would make yours worth more:
- Uncirculated condition with crisp edge lettering
- Original Royal Mint pack or set
- A genuine mint error confirmed by an expert
For market prices, look at recent sold results for the same coin in the same condition, not asking prices.
Quick answers
- Is the 1983 Royal Arms £1 rare?
- No. 443.1 million were made, so circulated examples are worth face value.
- How many 1983 Royal Arms £1 coins were made?
- 443,053,510 were struck for circulation.
- What is the 1983 Royal Arms £1 made of?
- Nickel-brass (70% copper, 24.5% zinc, 5.5% nickel). It weighs 9.5 g and measures 22.5 mm.
- Is the 1983 Royal Arms £1 still legal tender?
- No. The round pound stopped being legal tender on 15 October 2017. It can no longer be spent in shops; collectors still want the scarce dates.
Why the 1983 Royal Arms £1 was made
The round pound went into circulation on 21 April 1983. Before that the pound in your pocket was a small green banknote. In busy tills those notes wore out fast. A coin lasts for decades, so the government moved the denomination into metal. Plenty of people disliked the change at first. The new piece was small, thick and surprisingly heavy for its size. The Bank of England stopped issuing its £1 note the following year, which settled the argument.
For the very first design the Royal Mint chose the ornamental royal arms of the United Kingdom, a sensible pick for a coin meant for every corner of the country. It was 22.5 mm across, weighed 9.5 g and was struck in gold-colored nickel-brass with a lettered edge. A replacement for hundreds of millions of notes needed a huge first run: 443,053,510 were struck for circulation, the biggest figure for any round pound up to 2007. The same royal arms returned in 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008. Only the 1983 coin pairs that design with Arnold Machin's portrait of the Queen, the image used on decimal coins since their introduction.
How to recognize it
Eric Sewell's reverse shows the full royal arms: a crowned shield held by the lion and the unicorn, with the words ONE POUND below. The obverse carries the Machin portrait, which shows the Queen wearing a tiara and looking to the right. That portrait is how you tell this coin from the later Royal Arms dates at a glance. Then look at the edge. It reads DECUS ET TUTAMEN, Latin for "an ornament and a safeguard", a line taken from Virgil that first appeared on English coins under Charles II as a guard against people clipping silver from the rim. Here the words are cut into the milled edge. They may run either way up, which is normal.
The other side carries Arnold Machin's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, used on UK coins from 1968 to 1984.
1983 Royal Arms £1 by the numbers
In mintage terms the 1983 Royal Arms £1 is the most common of 41 circulating £1 coins with a published mintage. The next scarcer is the 1985 Leek £1 (228.4 million).
It was the only circulating commemorative £1 coin dated 1983.
What to check on your 1983 Royal Arms £1
- Read the edge. It should say DECUS ET TUTAMEN; an edge that doesn't match the design is the quickest sign of a fake.
- Turn the coin over on its vertical axis: on a genuine pound the design side is the same way up as the portrait. A tilted or upside-down reverse points to a copy.
- Weigh it: a genuine round pound weighs 9.5 g. Fakes are often light, soft in detail or a slightly different color.
- Remember that round pounds stopped being legal tender on 15 October 2017, so a common one has no use in shops.
With more than 443 million made, the 1983 coin is the most common round pound of all, so a worn one is a face value piece. A sharp, unworn coin with full luster attracts mild interest at best. Being first gives it some appeal. The Royal Mint put it in its 1983 annual sets, which is where the cleanest examples come from. Set coins have smooth, mark-free fields; coins from change show rubbing on the Queen's hair and on the lion. Fakes were a real nuisance with round pounds, so check the edge lettering is crisp and evenly spaced.
Mintage chart
Specifications
| Country | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Denomination | 1 pound |
| Issuer | Royal Mint |
| Year | 1983 |
| Circulation mintage | 443,053,510 |
| Composition | Nickel-brass (70% copper, 24.5% zinc, 5.5% nickel) |
| Weight | 9.5 g |
| Diameter | 22.5 mm |
| Shape | Round |
| Edge | Lettered: DECUS ET TUTAMEN |
| Portrait | Machin |
Frequently asked questions
Is the 1983 £1 coin rare?
No. It is the most plentiful round pound ever struck, with 443,053,510 issued for circulation as the coin replaced the £1 note. Collectors value it as the first of the series, but ordinary circulated examples are common and trade at face value.
What does DECUS ET TUTAMEN mean on a pound coin?
It is Latin for "an ornament and a safeguard". The phrase comes from Virgil and was first used on English coins in the reign of Charles II, when a lettered edge helped stop people trimming precious metal from the rim. The 1983 pound brought it back into everyday change.
Mintage figures: One pound (British coin) (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0), compiled from Royal Mint figures. How we build these pages.