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
British currency in the Middle East the Currency Board in Cyprus, one pound sterling issued by the Bank of England had to be deposited by the Government of Cyprus with the Crown Agents in London. In 1955, a decision was made by the British colonial authorities to decimalise the Cyprus pound, and in this they used the system proposed by William Brown, a member of the United Kingdom parliament, who suggested in 1855 that the pound sterling in the United Kingdom should be divided into one-thousand parts, each called a "mil." Although this system was never adopted in the United Kingdom, it was used in several