The new 12-sided £1 coin is officially circulating

By Joe O'Donnell

Published: Mar 28, 2017, 3 AM

The new 12-sided £1 coin entered circulation on March 28. And though it may take a while for collectors to find them in their change, there are places where they can find them right away.

Image courtesy of Royal Mint

The new 12-sided £1 coin entered circulation today in the United Kingdom, and The Sun reported a number of places collectors can go find them if they don’t want to wait for the new coin to simply pop up in change.

In several weeks, the coins will likely start showing up in normal circulation with some regularity, but if you want to get your hands on Uncirculated examples more quickly, you might want to get to one of the banks listed by the newspaper.

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For example, in London, The Sun reports customers can find the 12-sided coin in the following locations:

— Barclays: 2 Churchill Pl., E14 5RB
— Natwest: 1 Princes St., EC2R 8BP
— Halifax: 33 Old Broad St., EC2N 1HZ
— Post Office: 24/28 William IV St., WC2N 4DL
— HSBC: 103 Station Rd., Edgeware, HA8 7J
— Santander: 2 Triton Sq., NW1 3AN; 164-167 Tottenham Court Road, W1T 7JE; 57 Streatham High Rd., SW16 1PN

How to spot a counterfeit 1928 China ‘Auto’ dollar: Inside Coin World: We at Coin World report often on fake U.S. coin rarities coming from China, but not so often about fake Chinese coin rarities.

To see all the locations listed by The Sun, including those in York, Liverpool, Belfast and other major U.K. cities, click here.

The old “Round Pound” will be accepted as currency through Oct. 15, when the coins will lose legal tender status.

Why has the U.K.’s £1 coin changed from round to 12-sided?

As many as 3 percent of the round £1 coins (about 45 million) are fake, according to the Royal Mint.

To strike back against counterfeiters, the Royal Mint designed a larger, ringed-bimetallic, 12-sided £1 coin that they first announced in March 2014, just about three years before it would be put into circulation.

The coin incorporates the latest in security features, namely the Royal Mint’s patented iSIS technology, which is “a revolutionary new high security coinage currency system,” according to the Royal Mint. “iSIS — Integrated Secure Identification Systems — enables not just coins, but the whole cash cycle to be more secure, protecting the public, vending machine operators, retailers, and the wider banking system.”

Businesses can get more information about the change from www.TheNewPoundCoin.com, which was launched by the Royal Mint in October 2016.

What does the U.K.’s new £1 coin look like?

The latest portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, which was designed by Royal Mint engraver Jody Clark and has been in use since 2015, appears on the obverse of the ringed-bimetallic coin.

To design the reverse of the new 12-sided coin, the Royal Mint held a public competition. The winning designer, among the more than 6,000 entries, was 15-year-old student David Pearce.

The winning entry was announced in March 2015.

Pearce’s design features a rose, leek, thistle and shamrock — four well-known symbols of the United Kingdom — all emerging from a royal coronet.