The Royal Mint has released just over 7 million capercaillie 10p coins, the first King Charles III 10p pieces to enter general circulation. The release pairs 600,000 pieces dated 2023 with 6.5 million dated 2026, and every one of them carries the same reverse: a capercaillie, the world’s largest grouse and a bird now facing extinction in Britain for the second time in its history.
That reverse is what gives an otherwise routine circulation order its weight. There are more capercaillie 10p coins going into British tills this month than there are capercaillies alive in Scotland by a factor of roughly 13,000 to one.
The capercaillie 10p design is not new. Its circulation is.
The word “first” needs care here. The capercaillie 10p has existed since 2023, and collectors have been able to buy it in the Mint’s definitive and annual sets in Brilliant Uncirculated, proof, silver and gold. What changed on 25 August is that the coin is now being issued as money rather than as a collectable.
The design belongs to the eight definitive reverses revealed in October 2023, the first wholesale redesign of Britain’s circulating coinage since 2008 and a set built around the flora and fauna of the British Isles. The obverse carries Martin Jennings’s coinage portrait of the King, facing left, with the inscription CHARLES III DEI GRA REX FID DEF and the year of striking. The reverse sets the bird beside the denomination 10 PENCE over a repeating pattern of three interlocking Cs, a motif taken from the cypher of Charles II and used to unify the whole series. The capercaillie itself is based on an illustration by Mike Langman, who previously worked for the RSPB and whose bird artwork can still be seen across RSPB reserves and on its website.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Denomination | 10p |
| Alloy | Nickel-plated steel |
| Weight | 6.5 g |
| Diameter | 24.5 mm |
| Obverse | Coinage portrait of King Charles III by Martin Jennings |
| Reverse | Capercaillie, after an illustration by Mike Langman |
| Dates in this release | 2023 (600,000) and 2026 (6,500,000) |
| Where to find them | Bank and Post Office branches nationwide, plus tills at the Royal Mint Experience |
Only the third 10p reverse design since decimalisation
For a denomination in daily use, the 10p has been remarkably stable. Christopher Ironside’s crowned lion ran from 1968 to 2008. Matthew Dent’s segment of the Royal Shield, chosen from more than 4,000 public entries, has run since. The 26 A to Z designs of the Great British Coin Hunt in 2018 and 2019 were a commemorative interruption rather than a replacement, which makes the capercaillie only the third standing reverse the decimal 10p has carried.
It is also the first of the three to depict something that might not be there in a decade.
Why the Royal Mint released these 10p coins now
The Mint attributes the timing to rising demand for the 10p specifically. Circulating coin is struck against orders rather than to a fixed annual schedule, which is why 600,000 pieces minted in October 2023 were only needed in tills now, and why a further 6.5 million were dated and struck this year to meet the shortfall.
The wider picture explains why collectors care. Coins bearing the King’s portrait still account for roughly 1% of the 24.142 billion coins circulating in the UK, something on the order of 240 million pieces against a base still dominated by Queen Elizabeth II. The 10p is only the fourth denomination to reach circulation under the new reign, following the 5p, 50p and £1 since 2022. Nothing is being withdrawn to make room for it: coins bearing the late Queen’s effigy remain legal tender and in active circulation, and the changeover will happen at the pace of ordinary attrition rather than by decree.
More coins than birds: the capercaillie’s decline
Britain has lost the capercaillie once already. The native population died out around 1785, and the bird was reintroduced from Swedish stock in 1837 and 1838. That reintroduced population is now in trouble again. The last national survey, coordinated by RSPB Scotland over the winter of 2021/22, estimated 532 birds, a fall of about half from the 1,114 estimated in 2015/16 and the lowest figure since national surveys began in the early 1990s. The species sits on the Red List, its range has contracted to the Caledonian pinewoods, and the overwhelming majority of what remains is inside the Cairngorms National Park.
There is a thread of better news. Under the emergency plan led by the Cairngorms National Park Authority and NatureScot, 170 capercaillie were recorded in the park this year against 131 in 2025, and lek counts at Abernethy have risen over the same period. It is a recovery measured in dozens of birds.
Rebecca Morgan, Director at The Royal Mint, called the release a landmark moment for the nation’s coinage and described the bird as “teetering on the edge of extinction,” adding that the Mint hopes putting it into millions of pockets will start a national conversation about a species at real risk of vanishing from Britain.
How rare is the 2023 capercaillie 10p?
The two dates are not equally available. The 2026-dated coin, at 6.5 million, will turn up in change readily enough over the coming weeks. The 2023-dated coin will not. At 600,000 pieces spread across the whole United Kingdom, that works out at roughly one coin for every 115 people, which puts it well below the volumes a circulating 10p normally sees and squarely in the territory where change checking becomes worthwhile. Both dates are going out through banks and Post Office branches, and a quantity has been set aside for tills at the Royal Mint Experience in Llantrisant.
The Mint has built the release around a bird that most people who spend the coin will never see, and the arithmetic it keeps repeating, more coins than capercaillies, only works because the population is so small that a modest circulation order dwarfs it. Whether that argument lands depends on the coin being spent rather than saved. The 2023 date will disappear into albums quickly. The 2026 date is the one doing the actual work.
Capercaillie 10p: common questions
Which capercaillie 10p is the rare one? The 2023 date. 600,000 entered circulation against 6.5 million dated 2026.
What bird is on the new 10p coin? A capercaillie, the world’s largest grouse, found in the UK only in Scotland’s Caledonian pinewoods. The design is based on an illustration by Mike Langman.
Is this the first King Charles III 10p? It is the first to enter circulation. The design has been available in Royal Mint collector sets since 2023, and the 10p is the fourth denomination to reach circulation under the current reign, after the 5p, 50p and £1.
Where can I get one? Bank and Post Office branches nationwide, and tills at the Royal Mint Experience in Llantrisant. Neither date is being sold as a circulation product, so change checking is the route for both.
