Royal Mint 'Coin of the Year' 2020

[NeutronJack]

The Royal Mint has just announced its 'Coin of the Year' for 2020.

The most popular coin design of this year is apparently the 'Diversity Built Britain' 50p coin (shown below).

 

 

For anyone interested, here's the full list of results (in reverse order) :

Source: The Royal Mint

 

[HighlandTiger]

Anyone surprised? Obviously they used Dominion software to do the counting  

[CoinStruck]

I have to admit I thought the Diversity built Britain design was one of the dullest of 2020. There were a lot of great designs in 2020 that seemed to have polled poorly. 

[Rll1288]

It wasn't on my list of "Coins of the year"... dull and uninspiring

[AndrewSL76]

Call me sentimental, or just mental, but I really, really liked the Winnie the Pooh coins this year - especially Piglet. They brought back a lot of happy memories for me. 

Not keen on the diversity coin at all. I expected the Team GB coin to top the list.

A.

[AurumArgenti]

The overlords have spoken..... Diversity coin it is and you will worship it or else! 😳

[Oldun]

Does anyone actually take the result seriously ? 

[Zhorro]

The Diversity 50p is so popular that the gold version (mintage 950) is still on sale at the Royal Mint (and so is the piedfort version, mintage 200).

[richatthecroft]

21 hours ago, Oldun said:

Does anyone actually take the result seriously ? 

Yes- it’s the peoples vote- I’ve always being a great fan of the ‘Players Player’ award at any ceremony 😃 

My observation is, with the Sovereign languishing in only 17th position with a tiny 2.17% of the vote and sandwiched between the renowned and accomplished Piglet & Christopher Robin releases then perhaps this signals the imminent demise of the Coin of the Realm? 🤔 

It should be replaced forthwith with the ‘Great Comedian’ series- I’m hoping for a three coin series- Bernard Manning or perhaps the deceased Chuckle Brother, Barry Chuckle- to gather American momentum, perhaps Bill Hicks for the second release, and the one to satisfy the demand for coins in Japan, a Ken Shimura as the final, sure fire winner of the series. 

 I’m in the queue with my cash burning a hole in my pockets.  

[CoinStruck]

18 minutes ago, richatthecroft said:

Yes- it’s the peoples vote- I’ve always being a great fan of the ‘Players Player’ award at any ceremony 😃 

My observation is, with the Sovereign languishing in only 17th position with a tiny 2.17% of the vote and sandwiched between the renowned and accomplished Piglet & Christopher Robin releases then perhaps this signals the imminent demise of the Coin of the Realm? 🤔 

It should be replaced forthwith with the ‘Great Comedian’ series- I’m hoping for a three coin series- Bernard Manning or perhaps the deceased Chuckle Brother, Barry Chuckle- to gather American momentum, perhaps Bill Hicks for the second release, and the one to satisfy the demand for coins in Japan, a Ken Shimura as the final, sure fire winner of the series. 

 I’m in the queue with my cash burning a hole in my pockets.  

Hello Richard, as you can probably guess my vote was for the sovereign! 

[richatthecroft]

2 minutes ago, CoinStruck said:

Hello Richard, as you can probably guess my vote was for the sovereign! 

Mine too 😃 

[AndrewSL76]

18 minutes ago, CoinStruck said:

Hello Richard, as you can probably guess my vote was for the sovereign! 

 

14 minutes ago, richatthecroft said:

Mine too 😃 

Why? It wasn’t a special release and aside from the privy that you all moan and make fun of, it was not a special coin? Do you really think the majority of people who buy coins from the Royal Mint buy the sovereign and love it? For stackers and numismatic fans it may be a big hitter but the vast majority of people see it as a boring expensive coin. 

[CoinStruck]

53 minutes ago, AndrewSL76 said:

 

Why? It wasn’t a special release and aside from the privy that you all moan and make fun of, it was not a special coin? Do you really think the majority of people who buy coins from the Royal Mint buy the sovereign and love it? For stackers and numismatic fans it may be a big hitter but the vast majority of people see it as a boring expensive coin. 

Andrew.

I never made fun of or moaned about the privy mark, I actually quite like them. I collect sovereigns and love it’s timeless design. 

[NeutronJack]

I would have personally gone for the 2020 Oriental Britannia (in either silver or gold), neither of which appear to have even made it on to the list. 

I guess that means they didn't receive a single vote between them.

Perhaps, this simply means that I'm so lacking in judgement about coin designs that I shouldn't be allowed out in public unsupervised ... current COVID-19 restrictions aside!

NeutronJack

[richatthecroft]

2 hours ago, AndrewSL76 said:

Why?

For me it's reassuring that the Sovereign continues to be produced.  It represents hundreds of years of history.  It's also a coin that's readily recognisable and trusted, and its composition, size and weight replicated around the World.

2 hours ago, AndrewSL76 said:

It wasn’t a special release and aside from the privy that you all moan and make fun of, it was not a special coin?

I guess it could be argued by some, the regular churn of differing Privy Marks have been overdone, but for some collectors a Brexit/ VE Day or King George III Cypher might well be something they are interested in collecting.  

2 hours ago, AndrewSL76 said:

Do you really think the majority of people who buy coins from the Royal Mint buy the sovereign and love it?

No I don't, horses for courses I guess.  

My take is this, the Royal Mint's dramatic proliferation of coin releases over the last several years is fantastic news.   In doing so, it might well inspire people to join the coin collecting community and create a new generation of collector to take the hobby forward.   The importance of new collectors should not be underestimated, given that we appear to be on the brink of a cashless society and the current Pandemic and the decreasing opportunity to use coins, might well dramatically precipitate a further decline in the need for coins and notes in our pockets and soon there might well be no need for circulating coins.  

2 hours ago, AndrewSL76 said:

For stackers and numismatic fans it may be a big hitter but the vast majority of people see it as a boring expensive coin. 

Then the vast majority of people have every right to that opinion of the Sovereign.  The Royal Mint have duly obliged in giving people a diverse range of coin collecting options as an alternative.

 

As I stated in my post above, I look forward to the 'Great Comedian' series- Barry Chuckle with a Ladder Privy mark or a Bill Hicks with Cigarette Cypher might well appeal to some.   

[Paul]

It was that popular & well received by the buying public

Its STILL available for sale, in ALL formats, MONTHS on since launch

https://www.royalmint.com/our-coins/events/diversity-coin/

So popular its mintage levels were known to be in the many dozen to satisfy worldwide collector demand

More horrible virtue signally, left leaning, PC, feminist " ALL straight white men are evil" public relations claptrap to brainwash folk with

[Zhorro]

2 hours ago, richatthecroft said:

For me it's reassuring that the Sovereign continues to be produced.  It represents hundreds of years of history.  It's also a coin that's readily recognisable and trusted, and its composition, size and weight replicated around the World.

...

The Royal Mint have duly obliged in giving people a diverse range of coin collecting options as an alternative.

 

Maybe next we will have a woman instead of St George on the horse?

[richatthecroft]

11 minutes ago, Zhorro said:

Maybe next we will have a woman instead of St George on the horse?

I don’t know why I left a laugh reaction, you might well be right and the sword might well get swapped out as it might incite knife crime 🙄 

[greendragon]

3 hours ago, richatthecroft said:

I don’t know why I left a laugh reaction, you might well be right and the sword might well get swapped out as it might incite knife crime 🙄 

Why stop at a woman?

why not non binary

and modernise it a little

how about something motorized instead of a horse?

how about.........grayson perry!

[AurumArgenti]

42 minutes ago, greendragon said:

Why stop at a woman?

why not non binary

and modernise it a little

how about something motorized instead of a horse?

how about.........grayson perry!

I like that more than the RM box ticking diversity coin.👌😂

[Martlet]

The Royal Mail is wasting any effort on designs with those two coins 1st and 2nd favorite.  Zero effort, just a slogans.  Pack up your things engravers, hand over all future designs to PR department and a 3D printer to make the masters. 

Would like to know the sales numbers are for comparison. 

[NeutronJack]

For me, 'the winning design' resembles a severely mutilated golf ball mangled by the blades of a combine harvester, or repeatedly stamped using a heavy duty compression machine.

Yes, Royal Mint ... I am available for future commercial product copywriting assignments. 😎 👍

NeutronJack

[Wampum]

Diversity Built the Crystal Maze, an awful design.

[TeaTime]

I refuse to believe that actual real people voted for this over the other available choices.

I am actually angry - either the whole thing is some kind of perverse RM WOKE agenda statement or the people who voted are beyond any hope. The design is lazy, visually poor and patronising in the extreme.

Piglet should have won 😁

[AndrewSL76]

15 minutes ago, TeaTime said:

Piglet should have won 

Agreed.