Coins of the pound sterling coins' designs. As of 31 March 2016, there were an estimated 30.14 billion coins circulating in the United Kingdom. The first decimal coins were circulated in 1968. These were the five pence (5p) and ten pence (10p), and had values of one shilling (1/-) and two shillings (2/-), respectively, under the pre-decimal £sd system. The decimal coins are minted in copper-plated steel (previously bronze), nickel-plated steel, cupronickel and nickel-brass. The two-pound coins, and, as from 28 March 2017 the new one-pound coins, are bimetallic. The coins are discs, except for the twenty pence and fifty pence pieces, both of which
Non-decimal currency said to have become the first decimalized currency when Peter the Great established the ratio 1 ruble = 100 kopecks in 1701. The Japanese were in some sense earlier calculating with the silver momme and its decimal subunits - but then the momme was not a coin but a unit of weight equivalent to 3.75 g: accounting was by weight of silver. The British pound sterling was the last major currency to be decimalized, on 15 February 1971. The Maltese waited just one year (1972) before following suit and Nigeria followed in 1973. An early proposal for decimalizing the pound