1984 Thistle £1 Coin
The 1984 Thistle £1 is a circulating £1 coin with 146.3 million made. Value band: face value. Here is how to recognize it, what makes one worth more and what to check on yours.
- Year
- 1984
- Circulation mintage
- 146,256,501
- Value band
- Face value
- Composition
- Nickel-brass (70% copper, 24.5% zinc, 5.5% nickel)
Original illustration of the coin's shape and metal. Tap to flip. Not a picture of the actual design.
Face value · Small premium · Collector premium · Significant rarity. We use bands because prices change daily.
What is a 1984 Thistle £1 worth?
With 146.3 million made, the 1984 Thistle £1 is common. It has no collector value beyond the pound itself. Since 15 October 2017 the round pound can no longer be spent in shops. Only uncirculated coins from sets, genuine errors and the scarce dates bring more.
What would make yours worth more:
- Uncirculated condition with crisp edge lettering
- Original Royal Mint pack or set
- A genuine mint error confirmed by an expert
For market prices, look at recent sold results for the same coin in the same condition, not asking prices.
Quick answers
- Is the 1984 Thistle £1 rare?
- No. 146.3 million were made, so circulated examples are worth face value.
- How many 1984 Thistle £1 coins were made?
- 146,256,501 were struck for circulation.
- What is the 1984 Thistle £1 made of?
- Nickel-brass (70% copper, 24.5% zinc, 5.5% nickel). It weighs 9.5 g and measures 22.5 mm.
- Is the 1984 Thistle £1 still legal tender?
- No. The round pound stopped being legal tender on 15 October 2017. It can no longer be spent in shops; collectors still want the scarce dates.
Why the 1984 Thistle £1 was made
After a year of the royal arms, the Royal Mint began rotating designs that honored the separate nations of the United Kingdom. Scotland came first. The 1984 coin introduced a thistle, the Scottish national emblem, rising from a royal diadem. Over the next three years the same pattern followed for Wales, Northern Ireland and England. Scotland and Wales also got their own edge inscriptions, a neat way of making a single denomination feel local, while Northern Ireland and England kept the Latin of the 1983 coin.
The 1984 Thistle was struck in large numbers, 146,256,501 for circulation, as the round pound was still busy replacing paper notes in everyday use. It was the second and last round pound to carry Arnold Machin's portrait, because the Royal Mint switched every denomination to a new effigy in 1985. That makes it easy to separate from the 1989 Thistle, which repeats the reverse but has the later portrait. Physically nothing else changed: the coin stayed 22.5 mm wide, 9.5 g in weight and made of nickel-brass. It remained legal tender, like every other round pound, until 15 October 2017.
How to recognize it
Leslie Durbin designed the reverse, a single thistle growing up through an ornate royal diadem, with ONE POUND beneath. The obverse shows the Machin portrait, the Queen in a tiara with a fairly youthful, soft profile. Scotland's coin got its own edge inscription, NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT. It translates as "no one provokes me with impunity" and is the motto of the Order of the Thistle, found on the Scottish royal arms. If the reverse shows a thistle but the edge says DECUS ET TUTAMEN, something is wrong. To separate 1984 from 1989, check the date and the portrait: an older-looking Queen in a diadem means 1989.
The other side carries Arnold Machin's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, used on UK coins from 1968 to 1984.
1984 Thistle £1 by the numbers
Measured by how many were made, the 1984 Thistle £1 ranks 39th lowest of 41 circulating £1 coins with a published mintage. The next scarcer is the 2015 Royal Arms £1 (129.6 million); the next more common is the 1985 Leek £1 (228.4 million).
For scale, the most common is the 1983 Royal Arms £1 with 443.1 million, about 3 times as many. The scarcest is the 2011 Edinburgh £1 with 935,000, 156 times fewer than this one.
It was the only circulating commemorative £1 coin dated 1984.
What to check on your 1984 Thistle £1
- Read the edge. It should say NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT; an edge that doesn't match the design is the quickest sign of a fake.
- Turn the coin over on its vertical axis: on a genuine pound the design side is the same way up as the portrait. A tilted or upside-down reverse points to a copy.
- Weigh it: a genuine round pound weighs 9.5 g. Fakes are often light, soft in detail or a slightly different color.
- Remember that round pounds stopped being legal tender on 15 October 2017, so a common one has no use in shops.
At over 146 million, the 1984 Thistle is one of the higher mintages in the round pound series, behind only 1983 and 1985. A circulated example is a face value coin. Interest is limited to bright, unworn pieces, mostly from Royal Mint annual sets, which also included this coin. Those set coins keep a clean shine across the diadem; a coin from change usually has dull, scuffed high points. Fakes of Scottish pounds did circulate. A mismatched edge, a blurry thistle or a coppery tint are reasons to look again.
Mintage chart
Specifications
| Country | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Denomination | 1 pound |
| Issuer | Royal Mint |
| Year | 1984 |
| Circulation mintage | 146,256,501 |
| Composition | Nickel-brass (70% copper, 24.5% zinc, 5.5% nickel) |
| Weight | 9.5 g |
| Diameter | 22.5 mm |
| Shape | Round |
| Edge | Lettered: NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT |
| Portrait | Machin |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between the 1984 and 1989 Thistle pound?
The reverse is the same Leslie Durbin thistle. The 1984 coin has Arnold Machin's portrait of the Queen in a tiara, while the 1989 coin has Raphael Maklouf's portrait with a diadem. The 1984 mintage was also roughly twice as large.
What does the edge of a Scottish pound coin say?
Most Scottish round pounds read NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT on the edge. It is Latin for "no one provokes me with impunity", the motto of the Order of the Thistle. It appears on the 1984 and 1989 Thistle, the Lion Rampant coins and the 2014 Thistle and Bluebell.
Mintage figures: One pound (British coin) (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0), compiled from Royal Mint figures. How we build these pages.