A New 10p Enters Circulation for the First Time in Four Years

Something new may turn up in your change: a 10p coin carrying the portrait of King Charles and the world's largest grouse.

Sufficient demand has brought newly minted 10p pieces into circulation for the first time in roughly four years, and this time with a new design. The Royal Mint says shoppers and collectors should encounter the coins — minted and dated 2023 and 2026 — across the country.

The design

The reverse depicts the capercaillie, a bird found in a small part of Scotland and threatened with extinction.

It belongs to a redesigned suite of coins celebrating the King's interest in the natural world, unveiled by the Royal Mint in October 2023. The tails side of every newly minted denomination from 1p to £2 now carries an element of British flora and fauna, from bees to an oak leaf.

The illustration is based on work by the artist Mike Langman, who previously worked for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and whose drawings appear across the charity's nature reserves.

The new coin features the capercaillie, a species on the UK conservation red list and at risk of extinction in Britain for the second time.

Why it took four years

Coins carrying King Charles III's portrait have so far been limited to the 5p, 50p and £1. Old coins bearing the image of the late Queen Elizabeth II remain legal tender and stay in circulation, so new ones are struck only in response to demand.

With 1.4 billion 10p coins already circulating, there was simply no need for a new 10p until now. Some 600,000 coins dated 2023 and 6.5 million dated 2026 have been released to banks and post offices nationwide.

Even after that release, King Charles III coins account for only about 1% of the 24.1 billion coins circulating across the UK — which is exactly what makes new ones sought after by established numismatists and new collectors alike.

The uncomfortable arithmetic

The Royal Mint did not shy away from the comparison its own design invites.

"It's a stark reminder that more of these coins will enter circulation than there are capercaillies left in the wild," said Rebecca Morgan, a director at the Mint, which is based at Llantrisant in South Wales.

The RSPB says the UK capercaillie population has declined so sharply that the bird is at risk of extinction in Britain for the second time, and it now sits on the UK conservation red list. Seven million coins against a population measured in hundreds is not a subtle ratio.

"We hope that by putting this extraordinary bird into millions of pockets and purses, we can spark a nationwide conversation about a species at real risk of vanishing from Britain forever," Morgan said.

Banknotes are expected to follow the same path, with puffins, pine martens and bumblebees on the shortlist to replace the historical figures currently used.

A currency being redesigned as it recedes

There is a quieter story running underneath. A new 10p is news because coin production has slowed to the point where four years can pass without one — a direct consequence of how much less cash Britain uses than it did a decade ago.

The Mint is redesigning a payment system that a shrinking share of the population handles daily, which is why the design has been asked to do work beyond its function. A coin nobody spends is not a coin; it is a small metal object carrying a message about a bird.

On the evidence of the conversation the capercaillie has already started, that may be the more durable use.