1 Sovereign - Charles III Hanoverian Royal Arms, Proof Piedfort

The piedfort format — a coin struck on a blank twice the standard thickness — has no circulation purpose whatsoever. The Royal Mint revived it as a collector format in 1982, borrowing a tradition that dates to medieval France, where piéforts were struck as presentation pieces for assay records and royal gifts. This example carries the Hanoverian Royal Arms reverse, a design absent from the sovereign series for most of the twentieth century, reintroduced partly to mark the dynastic continuity question that quietly resurfaced with the accession of Charles III in September 2022.