Royal Arms £1 (2015)

The 2015 Royal Arms was struck in large numbers for circulation in its only year, so it is a common round pound, and worn coins sit at the bottom of the range. Condition moves the price: the lion's crown, the unicorn and the small flowers lose detail quickly, so a sharp coin is worth more than a tired one. The 2015 brilliant uncirculated pack version sells above any circulated coin. Genuine coins have both sides the same way up and a clean, evenly lettered edge.

With 129,616,985 struck for circulation, the Royal Arms £1 is the eighteenth rarest of the 26 ranked £1 designs and has the 167th 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 Menai Bridge £1, with 99,429,500 struck, and the next more common is the Three Lions £1, with 134,935,450 struck.

Look for a crowned shield flanked by a crowned lion at left and a unicorn at right, with a row of four flowers beneath it: rose, thistle, shamrock and leek. ONE POUND runs along the bottom. The date is always 2015, and the portrait is Jody Clark's, with the Queen in the George IV State Diadem and JC below. Eric Sewell's 1983 Royal Arms has no flowers and pairs with older portraits, so the flowers alone settle which coin you have.

In 2015 the Royal Mint revealed a fresh version of the Royal Arms for the round pound, at a time when the 12-sided coin was already due to replace it in 2017. The designer, Timothy Noad, had drawn the floral £1 coins of 2013 and 2014 for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. His Royal Arms places a crowned, quartered shield at the centre, held by a crowned English lion on the left and a Scottish unicorn on the right. Below the shield are the four national flowers: the rose, the thistle, the shamrock and, unusually for the Royal Arms, the leek of Wales. Both mottoes, HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE and DIEU ET MON DROIT, are on this side, and ONE POUND runs along the bottom. The heads side carries Jody Clark's portrait, new to the coinage that year, and the lettered edge carries DECUS ET TUTAMEN and a cross crosslet mint mark. The design was struck in 2015 only.