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
Pound sterling in the South Atlantic and the Antarctic Pound sterling in the South Atlantic and the Antarctic The United Kingdom possesses a number of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean as well as a section of the Antarctic continent. These territories are St. Helena with Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and the British Antarctic Territory. The official currency in these territories is either Pound sterling or a local currency that evolved from sterling and is at a fixed one-to-one parity with sterling. Until 1929–1930, when the Australian pound and New Zealand pound ceased to be at parity