F 10p: Fish and Chips

The fish and chips 10p is worth more than face value in any condition, but the best prices go to coins with the fish's head and the edges of the chips still sharp. Worn coins from change sell for less than uncirculated coins from the Royal Mint's cards and pouches. Check the date as well: a 2019 F is worth more than a 2018, reflecting its lower circulation mintage.

With 304,000 struck for circulation, the F 10p (Fish and Chips) is the joint sixth rarest of the 30 ranked 10p designs and has the joint eighth lowest mintage of all 194 circulating UK designs. That puts it in the Very rare band, for mintages under 500,000.

The next rarer 10p is the Q 10p (Queuing), with 303,000 struck, and the next more common is the Capercaillie 10p, with 7,100,000 struck.

Its lowest circulation mintage was in 2019, with 84,000 struck.

Look for a fish standing on its tail with a capital F inside its body, surrounded by chips. There is no date or value on this side of the F 10p; both are on the heads side, around the Queen's portrait, where the legend ends TEN PENCE 2018 or TEN PENCE 2019. The reverse is identical for both years, and the coin matches every other 10p in size and weight.

When the Royal Mint drew up its 2018 alphabet of Britain, F went to fish and chips. The dish first appeared in Britain in the 1860s and has been a national favourite ever since; the Royal Mint recalls that Winston Churchill called fish and chips "the good companions". The letter's verse offers them as the British answer to a rumbling stomach. Here the letter becomes part of the meal. The F stands upright in the middle of a fish, whose head and eye show at the top and whose tail fans out at the bottom, so the letter reads as the fish's body. Thick-cut chips are piled around it on both sides, filling the rest of the coin almost to the rim. The Royal Mint Team is credited with the design.

It was one of the 26 coins in the A to Z set issued in 2018.