God save the King, for giving us such pretty dosh!

Coins were a very important part of my childhood. When I was five or six, I was occasionally given pocket money – it was irregular and the amount varied. It might be 10p, perhaps a chunky twenty. A giant 50 pence piece was a rare thing indeed; and I’d probably have to wait for a birthday to see some gold pounds.

Weekly handouts became a thing when I was about seven, as my football sticker habit began to kick in. A few years later, when my brother and I were old enough to go to the local convenience store on our own, we’d nag a parent for our dosh early on Saturday morning – up to a quid then – and proceed to spend most of it on sweets, chocolate bars, crisps and fizzy drinks. I would put any change straight in my money box.

It wasn’t just the spending power of money I enjoyed, however; I liked coins as objects. I liked to check dates and designs, delighted by the really new and the weirdly ancient. (I still check coppers now, just to see if they pre-date me.)

Years ago, my mother kept a handful of British coins from the pre-decimalisation era in a box, and I would occasionally tip them out to marvel at the giant pennies, the cute little wren on the back of a farthing, and the fancy 12-sideed thruppenny bit. There were foreign coins in there too, from all over Europe; some enormous, others tiny, and even the odd one with a hole in the middle. These mundane objects were a link to distant times and exotic places.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the unveiling of a new collection of British coins by The Royal Mint this week gave me a flutter of excitement. Adorned with images of flora and fauna, in keeping with King Charles’s interest in the natural world, the new designs are a delight. A red squirrel on a 2p?! Lovely! A capercaillie menacing the reverse of a 10 pence piece?! Splendid! I can’t wait to get my hands on them.

But what will my children make of the new coinage? A few years ago, my daughter became interested in the set of 50 pence pieces bearing images of Beatrix Potter characters. Even then though, we were using cash less often – just like everyone else. In 2022, fewer than a million consumers in the UK mainly used cash for their shopping. Now, weeks can go by when I don’t buy anything with physical money. Only my barber remains resolute in not accepting cards.

Since my daughter became a teenager and gained a bank account, I stick 15 quid in there every month by standing order and don’t have to worry about handing over a couple of coins each week. My son sometimes reminds me that I should give him 75p, but he’s as likely to forget as I am – and when he does remember, I often discover I don’t have any actual dough on me. In any case, having grown up in a largely cashless world, he tends simply to rely on the fact that once a month I’ll use my debit card to buy him a magazine or some football cards to make up for the lack of brass.

Maybe none of this matters. I used to count my coins regularly as a kid, and was like the strange love-child of Gollum and Scrooge in my all-consuming delight at the fact that I had a precious £7.47 that was mine and mine alone. I’m not sure that is a particularly charming characteristic, so maybe it will be as well if my offspring aren’t quite so neurotic about what they have in they piggy banks.

Similarly, while I have an instinctive belief that handling coins and notes somehow helps you to understand how to value and manage money, I expect that my kids will be far more numerate than I was, thanks to their ability to deploy technology to their advantage.

But still, I want them to experience the joy of holding in their hand a 50p with a salmon on it, or a quid embossed with two bees – especially if coins are to become nearly as endangered as the species they bear.