Celebrate transportation and pathways of progress by adding the complete 4-part bridges series of round pounds to your collection. Add one of the specially designed £1 coins that symbolize bridges and pathways Start with this 2004 Forth Railway Bridge that represents Scotland as one of the four countries that are part of the United Kingdom.
How Much Is The 2004 Forth Railway Bridge £1 Coin Worth?
If you have a Forth Railway Bridge £1 coin in circulated condition, it holds an estimated value of £2.52 according to the most recent sold values on eBay.
As with any coin, the 2004 £1 coin’s worth is somewhat determined by how many coins were minted as well as the condition the coin is in.
There were 39,162,000 Forth Railway Bridge £1 coins minted, which is a very high number for a circulated coin.
Buying or selling online through eBay is a quick and easy way to locate coins. Just make sure you do a little research first, so you are sure of exactly what you are looking at before you buy or sell online.
The Royal Mint also has an online shoe where you can browse uncirculated coins.
Design Of The Forth Railway Bridge £1 Coin
The 2004 Forth Railway Bridge coin is part of the £1 round coins that were issued each year with a special reverse design to represent an emblem of constituents to the UK. The reverse design in a four-part series starting in 2004 depicted by images representing bridges and pathways of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and England.
This series kicked off in 2004 with the Forth Railway Bridge coin to represent Scotland. The following year, 2005, it would feature the Menai Straits Bridge to represent Wales. In 2006, the coin represented Northern Ireland with the Egyptian Arch Railway Bridge. Finally, the coin featured the Millennium Bridge to represent England in 2007.
The bridges coins were part of the round £1 coins. The British £1 coin is a denomination of the pound sterling. The original £1 coin replaced the Bank of England £1 note that was no longer issued after 1984 but was not removed from circulation until March 11, 1988.
The £1 coin is 22.50 millimetres in diameter and weighs 9.50 grams in Nickel-brass alloy with a thickness of 3.15 mm. The £1 Round series of coins were the only UK coin to have this specific yellow colour.
After 2017, when the coins were redesigned as a 12-sided bi-metallic coin, the older £1 coins could only be redeemed at banks. For a limited time, some retailers would also accept them. They are no longer considered legal tender, but collectors love them.
Obverse Design
The obverse of the 2004 Forth Railway Bridge coin is the design of Ian Rank-Broadley. This new designer was more of a realist than the previous designer and not afraid to show the queen looking a bit more mature. He also made the image as large as he could.
He depicted Her Majesty wearing the “Girls of Great Britain and Ireland” diamond tiara. The tiara was a wedding gift from Queen Mary, her grandmother, in 1947. The inscription surrounding her portrait was ELIZABETH II D.G. REG.F.D. followed by the minting year. Translated, the inscription means Elizabeth II Dei Gratia Regina, by the grace of God, Queen, Defender of the Faith. The designer’s initials IRB are seen directly under the neckline of the image.
Milled Edge Inscription Replaced
Like other round pounds, the edge of the coin is milled to protect the coin from debasement. Unlike most £1 coins, the 2004 Forth Railway Bridge £1 coin does not include the small crosslet mint mark or an incuse inscription of words.
The edge of the 2004 Forth Railway Bridge £1 coin is a milled edge that includes an incuse decorative feature that symbolized bridges and pathways. Around the edge are two pathways that intersect each other several times all the way around the coin.
Reverse Design
The design on this special heraldic emblem coin pays homage to the Forth Rail Bridge, one of Scotland’s most famous landmarks. The Forth Railway Bridge is pictured on the coin encircled by railway tracks.
The words ONE POUND are centred at the bottom just above the rim of railroad tracks that run around the outside edge.
The initials EE can be seen at one of the column bases of the bridge. The EE stands for the designer, Edwina Ellis.
Scotland Represented
Scotland was first represented on the £1 round coin in 1984 and 1989 with the same thistle floral emblem design. Scotland was again represented with a Lion Rampant in 1994 and 1999.
This time Scotland would be represented with a different design on the 2004 Forth Railway Bridge coin.
Scotland would not be represented again until 2011 with the Edinburgh Coat of Arms coin and again in 2014 with the Thistle and Bluebell image.
Scotland has not been represented on the coin since the £1 coin changed to be a 12-sided, bi-metallic coin in 2017.
What Does The Coin Represent?
The Forth Railway Bridge coin celebrates excellence in British engineering. The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge located near the east of Scotland. It connects the capital city of Edinburgh with Fife. The bridge is considered to be Scotland’s greatest man-made wonder.
The Forth Bridge was designed by Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker. The bridge carries the Edinburgh-Aberdeen line across the Forth between the villages of South Queensferry and North Queensferry.
The bridge was built in 1883 and completed in 1890 as the first major structure in Britain that was made of steel. The bridge used ten times more steel than the Eiffel Tower.
The Forth Railway Bridge of Scotland has a total length of 8,094 feet or 2,467 meters. It was the longest single cantilever bridge span in the world until 1919 when it took second place to the Quebec Bridge in Canada.
Forth railway Bridge Coin Designer
Edwina Ellis was a designer engraver and printmaker. She is also the designer of the special series of bridges and pathways round pound coin reverse sides. Edwina has designed 14 coins for the Royal Mint.
One of Edwina’s designs is the Stephen Hawking Fifty Pence of 2019 in which she successfully produced a 3D effect. Edwina also designed a 2017 Christmas coin, the London Transport Two-Pound 2013 coin which was drawn on an iPad, a First World War technology commemorative set, a 2018 Armistice coin, and all four of the 4-part bridge series of round pounds.
Edwina is originally from Australia. She embraces life and all of her creative designs with gusto. She took up inline skating when she was 69 and continued skating into her 70s. She pioneered engraving on homopolymer resins, a material that resists scale buildup.
She designed the bridge series of £1 coins with linocut. Linocut is a design or form carved in relief on a block of linoleum.
