The Royal Mint has announced that several new coins will be issued in 2016 to commemorate a host of anniversaries; as a consequence of this, we now have Peter Rabbit on one of our coins!!
New £2 coins will mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London and the centenary of the First World War.
A new 50p coin will commemorate the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, and a new £5 coin will mark the Queen’s 90th birthday.
But a rather late announcement yesterday added a final new design to the list – a 50p coin will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Beatrix Potter, the writer and illustrator of the tales of Peter Rabbit, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Mrs Puddleduck.
The Royal Mint is also issuing a new type of banknote in 2016, one made of a much more durable polymer/plastic material. The first, a £5 note, will feature Sir Winston Churchill. This will be followed by a new £10 note featuring another writer, Jane Austen. They will be smaller than current notes, which should pose a challenge for the owners and operators of cash machines/ATMs. Just as well that, in London at least, there is less and less need to carry cash, as most of us now have contactless debit and credit cards that are accepted for anything from a cup of coffee to a bus ticket.