10 Pence - Elizabeth II 5th portrait L - Loch Ness Monster (2018–2019)

One row for each year the 10 Pence - Elizabeth II 5th portrait – L - Loch Ness Monster was struck. Prices are medians of verified sold listings matched to that year from the listing: circulated is worn condition up to Extremely Fine, uncirculated is About Uncirculated or better. A count in brackets means fewer than three sales behind the figure; a grey figure marked "type" is the median across every year, shown where that year has no sale of its own yet. Most types have been searched year by year only since October 2026, so later years are still filling in. Use the grade table below for a price by condition across all years.

About the 2018 10 Pence - Elizabeth II – L - Loch Ness Monster

The 2018 10 Pence - Elizabeth II – L - Loch Ness Monster is a circulating 10 pence coin issued from 2018 to 2019, struck in nickel plated steel. It weighs 6.5g and measures 24.5mm across. Reverse design: The Loch Ness Monster with its tail wrapped around the letter ‘L’.

Mintage figures are recorded for 2 years between 2018 and 2019, 304,000 coins in all. 2019 is the scarcest date, with 84,000 struck.

Common questions

History and design

When the Royal Mint revealed its A to Z 10p coins on 1 March 2018, the Loch Ness Monster was one of the designs picked out in the first reports: Coin World named it alongside James Bond at the head of its coverage. The 26 coins, one per letter, were issued for circulation as The Great British Coin Hunt: Quintessentially British A to Z, and L went to Scotland's best-known piece of folklore.

The Royal Mint's page for the coin ranks the monster at the top of Britain's mythical beasts and quotes an eyewitness description of it as "the nearest approach to a dragon I have ever seen in my life". The Mint also records an 1871 sighting by D. Mackenzie of something like a log or an upturned boat "wriggling and churning up the water", and says interest grew once that account reached Rupert Gould.

In the Royal Mint's circulating figures the L coin has 220,000 dated 2018 and 84,000 dated 2019, or 304,000 over both dates.

The reverse shows the monster with its tail wrapped around a large letter L. Change Checker describes it in those terms, and notes that in Scottish folklore the creature lives in Loch Ness in the Highlands.

The reverse is credited by the Royal Mint to The Royal Mint Team. Coin Hunter gives the designer as P J Lynch, a name that does not appear on the Mint's pages. The obverse is Jody Clark's fifth portrait of Elizabeth II with the denomination and date, and the edge is milled.

Collecting notes

Two dates exist and only the obverse tells them apart. The 2018 coin is the more plentiful at 220,000, while the 2019 coin's 84,000 is the figure shared by 21 of the 26 letters that year, so neither date of the L coin stands out within the series.

No standard 10p was recorded for circulation in 2018 or 2019 in the Royal Mint's figures, so any 10p of those dates found in change will be one of the alphabet coins. For scale, the last ordinary 10p before the series, dated 2017, had a mintage of 33,300,000.

Collectors could also buy the coin from the Royal Mint in uncirculated condition and as a sterling silver proof dated 2018, which matches the circulating coin in size and weight. Other folklore and legend in the series is covered by K, King Arthur, and the next letter is M, Mackintosh.