Floral Wales £1 (2013)

The leek and daffodil pound comes from one of the smaller round pound issues, and circulated coins in good condition sell for more than face value. Condition decides where a coin sits: flattened petals and scratched fields bring it down, while coins from brilliant uncirculated sets and packs sit at the top. No varieties of this design are recorded.

With 5,270,000 struck for circulation, the Floral Wales £1 is the joint fifth rarest of the 26 ranked £1 designs and has the joint 109th lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Uncommon band, for mintages 2,500,000 to 9,999,999.

The next rarer £1 is the Floral Scotland £1, with 5,185,000 struck, and the next more common is the Floral Northern Ireland £1, with 5,780,000 struck.

Two plants twisted together, with a daffodil flower at the right and long curving leaves, mark out the Floral Wales £1 coin. There is no crown, and ONE POUND is spread along the bottom. The 1985 and 1990 leek coins show a single upright leek through a diadem, so the daffodil settles it. The date, 2013, is on the Rank-Broadley portrait side, and the edge should read PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD, the same Welsh words used on the dragon and leek pounds.

Wales shared the opening year of Timothy Noad's floral emblems series with England in 2013. Leslie Durbin's Welsh pound of 1985 had shown a leek on its own; Noad's design brings together both of the nation's plant emblems, the leek and the daffodil. Their long, ribbed leaves twist around each other in sweeping curves across the field, and the daffodil's trumpet flower opens at the right. ONE POUND is set in spaced capitals around the lower rim. Noad trained in calligraphy, heraldry and illumination at Reigate School of Art and Design, and much of his work is painted by hand in gouache and gold on vellum. Ian Rank-Broadley's portrait of the Queen is on the obverse. The edge carries the Welsh inscription PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD, meaning 'true am I to my country', together with the cross crosslet mint mark of The Royal Mint.

In the floral emblem set it was issued in 2013 together with the Floral England £1, and the Floral Northern Ireland £1 followed in 2014.