Leek £1 (1985 and 1990)

The leek was one of the biggest round pound issues, especially in 1985, so a circulated coin is worth no more than face value. Collectors pay more for brilliant uncirculated coins from sets and packs, and for proofs with clean, unmarked leaves. The missing-apostrophe edge is the one variety to check for on this design, so read the lettering on any leek pound before setting it aside.

With 325,700,051 struck for circulation, the Leek £1 is the 24th rarest of the 26 ranked £1 designs and has the 174th 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 Royal Shield £1, with 311,663,630 struck, and the next more common is the Royal Arms £1, with 623,304,510 struck.

Its lowest circulation mintage was in 1990, with 97,269,302 struck.

Look for long, arching leaves bursting up from a single stem that passes through a small crown, with a tangle of roots underneath: that is the leek £1 coin. The date is on the portrait side, 1985 or 1990, and both years carry the Maklouf portrait. Read the edge as well. It should say PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD with a small cross at the end, and on some coins the apostrophe in I'M is missing, a known edge variety.

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

• Edge without apostrophe: Some coins have the apostrophe missing from the edge inscription PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD.

Wales took its turn on the round £1 in 1985, the second year of the national emblem designs that followed the Royal Arms coin of 1983. Leslie Durbin, the silversmith behind every emblem in the series, chose the leek to represent Wales. He drew it whole, its broad leaves fanning upward and outward from a thick stem that passes through the Royal Diadem. The roots spread out below the diadem, a treatment heralds call eradicated. ONE POUND is set in an arc beneath. 1985 was also the year the Queen's portrait changed, and the leek became the first £1 to carry Raphael Maklouf's portrait, in which she wears a diadem. The edge of the Welsh coin carries PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD, a line from the Welsh national anthem meaning 'true am I to my country', with a cross crosslet mint mark after it. The design came back without change in 1990, still with the Maklouf portrait.

In the floral emblem set it followed the Thistle £1 of 1984 and came before the Flax Plant £1 of 1986.