Cardiff £1 (2011)

Scarcity keeps the Cardiff £1 above face value even in worn condition, and it remains one of the round pounds collectors still look for. A crisp coin with a clear dragon and banner is worth more than a worn one, and brilliant uncirculated and proof coins more again. The rotated-die error is far scarcer than a normal coin. Misalignment was also common on counterfeit round pounds, though, so a rotated Cardiff coin is judged on its edge, metal and detail as well.

With 1,615,000 struck for circulation, the Cardiff £1 is the second rarest of the 26 ranked £1 designs and has the 51st lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Scarce band, for mintages 1,000,000 to 2,499,999.

The next rarer £1 is the Edinburgh £1, with 935,000 struck, and the next more common is the London £1, with 2,635,000 struck.

A dragon holding a flagpole sets the Cardiff £1 apart from the other capital cities coins. The flag at the top shows three chevrons, and a tall leek rises to the left of the pole, with CARDIFF written over the top. Check that the date on the portrait side is 2011 and that the edge reads Y DDRAIG GOCH DDYRY CYCHWYN. One genuine error is recorded: a coin with the reverse rotated far out of line with the obverse, confirmed as a real striking fault by The Royal Mint Museum.

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

• Rotated die: The reverse is turned about 135 degrees against the obverse. One was found in July 2017 and confirmed as a genuine striking error by The Royal Mint Museum.

Cardiff and Edinburgh arrived in 2011 to complete the capital cities set that London and Belfast had begun the year before. Stuart Devlin designed all four. An Australian artist who specialised in gold and silver, he became well known in the 1970s and 1980s as a London-based designer of collector's pieces. For Wales he took the arms of Cardiff, granted in 1906. A dragon rears up on a grassy mount, gripping a flagstaff; the banner flying from it carries three chevrons, and a leek rises from the mount behind the staff. That shield fills the central circle, with CARDIFF curving above and the words ONE and POUND standing at the left and right. Beneath it, three small roundels show the Belfast ship, the Edinburgh castle and the London cross. The edge inscription, Y DDRAIG GOCH DDYRY CYCHWYN, is Welsh for 'the red dragon will give the lead', a phrase Cardiff also uses as one of its two mottoes.

In the capital city set it followed the Belfast £1 of 2010 and was issued in 2011 together with the Edinburgh £1.