An Ornament and a Safeguard

Money is always an interesting aspect of being somewhere else, although not being able to recognise coins and bills by their colours or designs can be annoying when there's a huge line of people behind you waiting to pay for their purchases. However, once you get used to a particular country's currency, it seems that it's a quick jump to taking the currency for granted, barely looking at it when you give or receive change or bills. Well, today I examined the contents of the little container where we throw our change from the day and was interested to find quite a few different £1 coin designs:

After realising that I could only identify one of the images (because we had seen it on our recent trip to Scotland), I decided to find out more about the humble £1 coin. Issued since 1983 in response to rising inflation, the changing design on one side of coin alternates each year between representations of the UK, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and England, in that order. The above photo contains one image of the UK, three of Scotland, and two each of Wales, Northern Ireland, and England. Can you identify them all? If not, the answers are here. The most salient aspect of the £1 coin isn't its design, however; it's its hefty feel. Approximately twice as thick as other UK coins, the £1 feels solid, and the Mint had made use of this bulk thus far by inscribing three different mottos and one image on the edgeface:

Decus et Tutamen - "An Ornament and a Safeguard" (originally on seventeenth-century coins, taken from Virgil's Aeneid, and referring to the coin's decorative edge functioning as a safeguard against removing precious metals by chipping, and to the coin's image of the monarch as a representation of ornamentation and safety for the country), Nemo Me Impune Lacessit - "No One Provokes Me with Impunity" (the motto of the Order of the Thistle, a Scottish order of chivalry), Pleidiol Wyf I'm Gwlad - "True Am I to My Country" (from the Welsh national anthem), and a woven image symbolising paths and bridges. Not a bad amount of information from a humble coin container, innit?