British Monarchs: Charles I Behind the Design

Drawing on more than 500 years of history, our popular British Monarchs Collection beautifully reimagines coinage portraits for legendary British monarchs. Our collection takes a closer look at original coins and remakes these designs as they would have originally been struck. The latest release in the collection is the sixth coin, which commemorates Charles I and features the only equestrian portrait in the collection.

Nicholas Briot first designed this majestic equestrian portrait in the seventeenth century. The design features Charles on horseback, holding his sword aloft. The design features a small ‘b’ next to the sword to denote it as Briot’s work. Before he arrived in England, Briot was the Engraver General at the French Mint. Briot was well known for his ambition and had a reputation for creating detailed designs. One of his projects during his time at the French Mint was trying to improve on the technology used to create coinage. Briot boasted that his new machines could improve production, but these weren’t as efficient as the other methods used at the time.

As his time at the French Mint ended, Briot made the move to England. In April 1626, Briot was requested to make puncheons and dies – the metal artefacts used to impress designs onto coins – for gold and silver pieces to commemorate Charles I’s coronation. Further commissions followed, and Nicholas Briot started working at The Royal Mint at the Tower of London in 1628. In 1633, he retained the king’s favour with many others considering his coins neater and better executed than those his predecessor created. Briot worked on a range of designs during his time at The Royal Mint, including the equestrian portrait remade as part of our British Monarchs Collection.

Drawing on more than 1,100 years of experience, our team has remastered Briot’s design in exquisite detail to reflect the original design that appeared during the reign of Charles I. Using coins from the monarch’s reign to ensure a faithful and authentic recreation, the remastering involved the work of Chief Engraver Gordon Summers and product designer Laura Clancy.

“We select original coins or tools, then 3D scan them to create a digital model. We work on the model to create the best version of the original coin we can. The aim is not to modernise but sympathise with the original. So, we would remove scratches or dents that were made during the lifecycle of the coin but not remove the character of the original minting process, such as fishtailed lettering, irregular beading, slight doubling from the striking. There is a real balance to create the best version of the coin that could have been made at the time, whilst using modern minting processes.”

Laura Clancy

The British Monarchs King Charles I 2023 UK Coin features the official coinage portrait of His Majesty King Charles III on the obverse, which makes The British Monarchs Collection one of our only collections to feature a change in effigy during the course of the collection’s release.