Bees £1 (2023 to 2026)

The Bees £1 is still being spent, but collectors pay more than face for circulated coins, especially clean ones. Brilliant uncirculated examples from Royal Mint sets and packs sell above coins from change, and the 2023 coins with the Tudor crown privy mark, which came only from those sets, sell as a separate version. Genuine errors, such as a single-metal coin found at a Post Office in Broughton-in-Furness, Cumbria, go to auction as pieces in their own right.

With 72,505,000 struck for circulation, the Bees £1 is the fifteenth rarest of the 26 ranked £1 designs and has the 162nd lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Common band, for mintages 10,000,000 or more.

The next rarer £1 is the Flax Plant £1, with 48,853,076 struck, and the next more common is the Oak Tree £1, with 75,618,989 struck.

Its lowest circulation mintage was in 2023, with 10,030,000 struck.

Two bees on the right, a band of interlocking Cs on the left and a large 1 over POUND identify the Bees £1 at a glance, and the King faces left on the other side. Circulation coins are dated 2023 or 2025, with the year also repeated in micro-lettering inside the rim. Brilliant uncirculated and proof coins dated 2023 carry a small Tudor crown privy mark beside the portrait; coins from change do not. A pound struck in one metal instead of two colours is an error.

Known varieties of the Bees £1, all listed among the UK error coins and varieties:

• Tudor crown privy mark (2023): Brilliant uncirculated and proof coins dated 2023 carry a Tudor crown privy mark beside the portrait; coins issued for circulation do not.
• Single-metal error: A coin struck in one metal instead of two colours. One was found at a Post Office in Broughton-in-Furness, Cumbria, and later sold at auction.

In October 2023 the Royal Mint revealed new reverses for all eight circulating denominations, from the 1p to the £2 coin, to go with the new King's portrait. Each shows British flora or fauna, reflecting the King's interest in conservation, and the £1 was given two honey bees, one above the other on the right half of the coin, both facing right. Bees pollinate a wide range of plants and fruit trees and are found throughout the UK. The left side of the coin carries a band of interlocking Cs, a pattern based on the cypher of Charles II that links all eight designs, and over it sits the denomination: a large numeral 1 above the word POUND. The reverse was designed in-house at the Royal Mint, and the obverse is Martin Jennings's portrait of the King, who faces left where Elizabeth II faced right. Although the first coins are dated 2023, they reached circulation only in August 2024. No coins dated 2024 were struck for circulation, and a 2025-dated issue followed.